“Please delete this app!” - The EU ban on Tiktok and controversial opinions.
Source: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
By Sara Saccon, 6 minutes
As you may have heard in the past weeks, the European Commission and, following a domino effect, all the other main institutions of the EU, banned their staff from using one of the currently most popular social media: TikTok. The choice has been justified by citing cybersecurity concerns, but not everyone agrees. Learn more about what the ban on TikTok means for the EU and China by reading our article!
What happened?
The surprising decision of the EU to ban TikTok from all corporate devices is believed to be the first radical action against a concrete app. In the past weeks, this news has been vividly discussed also due to the popularity of the platform. Its algorithm-driven feed exploded during the stay-at-home months of the pandemic and is used every month by over 150 million Europeans.
However, concerns linked to TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, do not represent a recent development. As a matter of fact, even though the Chinese Communist Party is not even mentioned in the official communications of the institutions, ByteDance is believed to be involved in privacy breaches, espionage, and data transfer to the Chinese Government. In November 2022, the platform published a privacy update in which the company admitted that personal data from European users could be accessed by some of its China-based employees, thus leading EU officials to fear a potential transfer of sensitive data to the hands of the Communist Party. Euronews argues that this fear of foreign interference seems also to be supported by China’s National Intelligence Law from 2017, which requires companies to “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work”, including the handover of data.
The ban imposed by the institutions concerns all their corporate devices, but also personal devices connected to the official mobile network provided by the EU. The institutions involved so far are the European Commission, which was the first to announce the decision, the EU Council, the Parliament, the diplomatic service (EEAS), and the European Court of Auditors based in Luxembourg. The two main advisory bodies, the Committee of Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, are following the decision as well.
As reported by Politico, the internal email sent by the Commission to its over 30,000 staff members highlights a mix of related reasons: “The measure is necessary due to data protection concerns related to the app. It aims to protect Commission data and systems from potential cybersecurity threats”.
Then, what does the European legislation on cybersecurity say? And why does it address only TikTok and not Instagram, Facebook, or other platforms that gather huge amounts of personal data?
The European Commission logo displayed behind a TikTok logo on a smartphone on February 23, 2023. Photo: dpa.
Cybersecurity legislation
As the Commission claims that the main reason for the suspension of the app is cybersecurity and the response to potential cyber alerts, it is useful to gain a better understanding of the EU’s policies in place.
In 2019 the EU adopted the Cybersecurity Act, an important document that strengthened the role of the ENISA, which is the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. The Agency has now a wide mandate and several tasks, like the support to member states, EU institutions, and businesses in key areas.
Cybersecurity seems indeed to have become a strategic policy for the Union and one of the “Commission’s priorities in its response to the coronavirus crisis, as there were increased cyberattacks during the lockdown”. Investments to promote cyber resilience are realized via multiple channels: through the Recovery Plan, Horizon Europe, Digital Europe Programme, and InvestEU.
Cyber Diplomacy and Cyber Defence are other two key areas of cybersecurity and the EU states that its goal is to protect the Union against cyber threats from outside its borders. This seems to be the case with TikTok. The decision to ban the video-sharing app, however, was taken by a group of high-ranking bureaucrats reporting to President Ursula von der Leyen. The "corporate management board” includes the director general responsible for budget, human resources, and security and the director general of the legal service. Therefore, it seems that the ban has skipped any political decision-making bodies. Some EU deputies and national governments raised questions and doubts about the ban since they perceived the decision as unexpected.
Source: Business Roundtable.
Opposing views
Some observers underline that the EU’s explanations still do not illustrate what it is concretely concerned about. As a matter of fact, the way in which the decision was taken has also been questioned by some Members of the European Parliament, who asked for a more detailed explanation and stated that “trusting blindly” is not enough.
Arguments against the ban of TikTok mainly underline that there are also other platforms that control huge amounts of data, such as Meta, and that such unprecedented restriction goes against the own words of the EU about respecting the principles of market economy and fair competition.
Of course, TikTok defends its independence from the Chinese Government and claims that the suspension is “misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions”. Also, the Chinese ambassador to the EU, Fu Cong, has expressed his disappointment with the restrictions.
European Parliament. Credit: European Union 2017 - Source: EP
Not only the EU
Some national governments have also reached out to Brussels asking for technical details behind the choice. Yet, in the past weeks, the governments of The Netherlands, France, Britain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Denmark have adopted similar decisions, or at least strongly recommended public servants to delete the app.
On the other hand, the Polish government has announced that it will continue using TikTok, including for electoral purposes, and that there are no plans to make changes to its social media strategies. The government official responsible for digitalization has even claimed that the decision of the Commission could be even more political rather than technical.
But TikTok is also a hot topic in the United States, where the White House has announced that the app is banned from all government devices at the federal level. On March 23, TikTok’s chief executive defended the company in almost five hours of testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The next step could indeed be a suspension of TikTok from all devices nationwide.
Canada and New Zealand have also adopted the ban on corporate devices.
Credit: China Briefing.
What does this mean for EU-China relations?
The allegations against TikTok and the ban against the app can be viewed as a small piece in the complicated puzzle of relations between the EU and China. The state of the relationship is described by the External Service Action of the Union in a rather ambiguous way: “The EU continues to deal with China simultaneously as a partner for cooperation and negotiation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival”.
Will one of the most popular social media apps represent a step closer to the worsening of the relations between China and the European Union?
To learn more about the topic:
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-ban-tiktok-europe-has-questions/
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cybersecurity-act
