What would it mean to "ban" an app? Would they force Apple and Google not to distribute it? Would they set up a national firewall?
This interference with the free market is about politics, not security.
Leaving aside mechanisms and policies, this is not about seeing videos, this is about the invasive amount of information TikTok collects from devices it runs on.
But it isn't about you. We already know that social media can be, and is, used to track details by nation states on all sorts of things, from the movement of individuals of interest, as well as things such as estimating the population of military bases, discovering military operations, etc.
A foreign government having access to all of that data for a huge portion of the population is 100% a national security risk.
This level of paranoia looks more like the Soviet Union[1] than it does like a free country.
[1] Where you couldn't even buy a map, because heaven forbid, foreign spies might use them to compromise... National security. They might learn the distances between the army base, and the hospital, and then who knows what diabolical plot they may hatch?
A) Your neighbor's laptop is partially compromised, and part of what is obtained is a list of APs with which it has been associated.
B) Your phone has TikTok installed, and part of what is obtained is your location and the available APs (while you're using the app, only).
C) You use your phone to view TikTok videos in the middle of the night, at home.
Because of B+C, the foreign actor now knows where you live (via location services) and the wireless APs nearby. Because of A, they know where your neighbor's laptop has associated. Taken together, they now have a reasonable level of confidence where your neighbor lives even though they have never installed TikTok.
And if they want to know where my neighbour lives, they could just consult a... Land deed registry. Or their resume.
Or... Run a credit check on them. That last one will also give personal information at a level of fidelity right down to the number of nose hairs that they plucked this morning.
But let's cycle back to that. How does knowing my neighbour's address compromise national security? Am I compromising national security by telling you that John Leslie lives in Apt 341 on my floor? Even if he works for the Air Force?
Keep in mind - the man has to live somewhere. What relevance of note does where he lives in particular have to a nation state?
If this is the best argument that can be made, then national security is safe as houses.
Oh you're reading this too literally. When the US government says 'national security issue' what it means is: they want to.
That's it. The list of subjects the US has deemed "National security" over the years to get what it wants is both long and broad.
Had TikTok originated in the US and been bought by a foreign company, The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States could have ordered the foreign company to divest itself of that asset. An example was Grindr being purchased by Kunlun Tech, and CFIUS deciding that this wasn't allowable. --The idea being that the type of data Grindr has could pose national security issues (due to government employees or elected officials being blackmailed, not that Grindr has ever been known for any form of security).
With TikTok, however, it seems to be more about posturing. I'm not sure what legal mechanism they could really use to force the app to be blocked.
What remains to be seen is if said law would be "legal" (as in: not in direct conflict with the constitution).
However, if this were to happen, it would almost certainly be under national security law, which has pretty far reaching powers for this sort of thing. Knowing how much the app spies on you, and knowing that they are ultimately under control by the Chinese government, there's a very strong case to be made.
> the constitution to begin with.
Would that be this foreign corporation that is incorporated in the checks notes State of California?
https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/Document/RetrievePDF?Id=03...
(Yes, I know this is a company owned by the Beijing based ByteDance but that’s not immediately disqualifying of this US corporation run under US law being able to defend itself in a US court system as any other US company would.)
Having set up a corporation on US soil does not grant free pass to a foreign government to spy on US citizens.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/02/apple-google-comp...
Apple also removed a bunch of games on its Chinese app store because of new policies by the Chinese government.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298811/apple-chinese-ap...
on Android at least cirvumenting the Google Play store is quite feasible, see Fortnite most prominently.
it may work only on iOS
Even with VPN people were not able to bypass ban.