by President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to court younger voters ahead of the presidential elections, but US adults have mixed opinions on whether the video-sharing app should even work in the country.
A new poll by The Associated Press and NORC’s Public Affairs Research Center finds a three-way split on banning the app, with 31% of US adults saying they would favor a nationwide ban on TikTok use, and 35% of them say. which would oppose that type of action. A further 31% of adults say they are neither for nor against a ban on the social media platform, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.
Talks of banning TikTok reached a fever pitch in the US early last year after a series of Western lawmakers, governments and regulators raised concerns that a series of Chinese laws could force the company to share user data with the country’s authoritarian government. Neither the U.S. government nor TikTok critics have provided specific evidence of such an incident, which also applies to the platform, it could be used to spread or use propaganda that would benefit the Chinese government to bury or enlarge certain materials.
TikTok vigorously defended itself, saying in part that it has never shared data with the Chinese government and will not do so if asked. The company also promised to remove US 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 being stored on servers maintained by software company Oracle.
The White House reiterated this week that the platform is under ongoing review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reportedly threatened last year to broadly ban the app unless its Chinese owners divest their stake.
Meanwhile, efforts by Congress to enact a broader ban — including bipartisan legislation that does not mention TikTok by name but would give the Commerce Department the power to review its use and d could restrict its use – amid opposition from industry and digital rights groups, as well as some lawmakers, influencers and small businesses that use the platform.
The AP-NORC poll shows that TikTok users — about 170 million in the US, most of them younger — are less likely to worry about the app sharing American user data, reflecting a previous generational divide. About a quarter of daily users say they are “very concerned or very concerned” about the idea of the Chinese government obtaining users’ personal information, compared to about half of US adults overall.
“For politicians, it’s like a hot potato,” said Dan Ives, a technology analyst at financial advisory firm Wedbush Securities. “Because one way (they’re) trying to sound tough in front of the microphone. But the reality is, it could go back.”
A majority of US adults, 56%, said they would favor 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 several other countries, as well as the European Union. About a quarter of US adults are neutral about blocking TikTok from government devices, while 17% are against it.
The Biden campaign has said it is using a separate cellphone for TikTok to isolate the app from other communications and was taking extra steps for protection. The decision has been criticized by some Republicans.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, also told reporters Monday that he still had concerns about the social media platform.
“We still have to find a way to follow India, which 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 neutralizes the security concerns that have been raised, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said, “We’re hopeful that policymakers – of both parties – recognize the progress what we have done in obtaining a US protected user. data, an effort that puts us far ahead of any peer company in this space.”
Last year, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined the app in an attempt to reach younger voters, despite calling it “digital fentanyl” that should be banned. Other Republican candidates found other ways to get their messages across, such as producing video clips that could be shared between apps or working with conservative influencers who were already present on the app.
The poll also found that about 6 in 10 US adults – and 41% of daily TikTok users – are “very concerned or very concerned” about the amount of time children and teenagers spend on TikTok. A majority of adults, 59%, say they are concerned about the spread of misinformation on the app, while around half are concerned about people doing dangerous or illegal things they see others doing on the platform, which feel less among TikTok users.
TikTok said last year that it was implementing time limits for minors. But those restrictions still allow teenagers to continue viewing content after entering a passcode.
The company says it is also stepping up its work to combat misinformation by partnering with global fact-checking organizations, among other initiatives. This week, TikTok said it would set up fact-checking hubs inside the app to help fight false information in the upcoming European Union elections.
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AP journalist Linley Sanders of Washington contributed.
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The poll of 1,152 adults was conducted January 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from the NORC probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the US population. The margin of sampling error for each respondent is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
