President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to attract young voters ahead of the presidential election, but U.S. adults have mixed views on whether the video-sharing app should work in the country.
A new poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals a three-way split on banning the app; 31% of U.S. adults say they would support a nationwide ban on TikTok use, while 35% say they would oppose such actions. 31 percent of adults say they neither support nor oppose banning the social media platform owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.
Talks over a TikTok ban in the US came to a head early last year after a number of Western lawmakers, governments and regulators expressed concerns that a range of Chinese laws could force the company to share user data with the country’s authoritarian government. No specific evidence of such an event has been provided by the US government or TikTok critics; they, too, suggest that the platform could be used to spread propaganda beneficial to the Chinese government’s interests or be used to conceal or magnify certain issues.
TikTok has defended itself strongly, saying in part that it has never shared data with the Chinese government and would not do so if asked. The company has also vowed to separate U.S. user data from its parent company through a separate entity run independently of ByteDance and monitored by outside observers. TikTok says new user data is currently stored on servers provided by software company Oracle.
The White House confirmed this week that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has an ongoing review of the platform; The committee reportedly threatened last year with a broad ban on the practice if its Chinese owners did not divest their shares.
Meanwhile, congressional efforts to enact a broader ban, including bipartisan legislation that does not mention TikTok by name but would give the Commerce Department authority to review and potentially restrict its use, stalled last year due to opposition from industry and digital rights groups. as well as some MPs, influencers and small businesses using the platform.
The AP-NORC poll shows TikTok users, about 170 million in the U.S. and mostly young, are less concerned about the app sharing data from American users; This reflects the generational divide felt earlier. About a quarter of daily users say they are “extremely or very concerned” about the idea of the Chinese government obtaining users’ personal information, compared to about half of U.S. adults.
“It’s like a hot potato for politicians,” said Dan Ives, a technology analyst at financial advisory firm Wedbush Securities. “Because they kind of want to look tough in front of the microphone. But the truth is, it could backfire.”
A majority of U.S. adults (56%) said they would prefer a more limited TikTok ban on government devices, such as government employees’ computers and phones. Such bans have been implemented by at least 36 states, the federal government and the European Union, as well as some other countries. Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults are neutral about blocking TikTok from government devices, while 17% oppose it.
The Biden campaign said it uses a separate cell phone for TikTok to isolate the app from other communications and has taken additional steps for protection. Some Republicans criticized the decision.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, also told reporters on Monday that he continues to have concerns about the social media platform.
“We still need to find a way to follow India, which has banned TikTok,” Warner said. “I’m a little worried about a mixed message.”
In response to a question about whether the campaign’s use of the app has defused security concerns raised, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said: “We hope policymakers in both parties are aware of the progress we’ve made in ensuring the security of protected US users.” “This is an effort that puts us well ahead of similar companies in this space.”
Last year, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined the app in a bid to reach young voters, despite calling it “digital fentanyl” that should be banned. Other Republican candidates have found other ways to get their messages across the platform, such as creating video clips that can be shared across apps or working with conservative influencers already present on the app.
The survey also found that nearly 6 in 10 U.S. adults and 41% of daily TikTok users are “extremely or very concerned” about the time children and teens spend on TikTok. A majority of adults (59 percent) say they are concerned about the spread of misinformation on the app, while nearly half say they are concerned about people doing dangerous or illegal things they see others doing on the platform; This is something that is less felt among TikTok users.
TikTok announced last year that it was imposing time limits for minors. However, these restrictions still allow teens to continue watching content after entering the password.
The company says it’s also strengthening its efforts to counter misinformation by partnering with more global fact-checking organizations, among other initiatives. This week TikTok said it would set up fact-checking centers within the app to help prevent misinformation in the upcoming European Union elections.
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AP Journalist Linley Sanders contributed from Washington.
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The survey of 1,152 adults was conducted Jan. 25-29, 2024, using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all participants is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.