The IT Nerd

I suspect that Chinese owned social media company TikTok is really in deep trouble here as Forbes is reporting that they are under investigation from the FBI and DOJ:

The FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating the events that led TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to use the app to surveil American journalists, including this reporter, according to sources familiar with the departments’ actions.

According to a source in position to know, the DOJ Criminal Division, Fraud Section, working alongside the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has subpoenaed information from ByteDance regarding efforts by its employees to access U.S. journalists’ location information or other private user data using the TikTok app. According to two sources, the FBI has been conducting interviews related to the surveillance. ByteDance’s use of the app to surveil U.S. citizens was first reported by Forbes in October, and confirmed by an internal company investigation in December.

“We have strongly condemned the actions of the individuals found to have been involved, and they are no longer employed at ByteDance. Our internal investigation is still ongoing, and we will cooperate with any official investigations when brought to us,” said ByteDance spokesperson Jennifer Banks. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the DOJ and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is the first report of the federal government investigating ByteDance’s surveillance practices. It is not clear if the DOJ’s subpoena is connected to the FBI’s interviews.

The reporter behind this story is Emily Baker-White who broke a couple of stories linked above on TikTok spying on journalists last year. And she herself was tracked by TikTok. All of this is highly problematic to TikTok and I am of the opinion that this will lead to an outright ban sooner rather than later. And I am talking about very soon. As in weeks and not months.

That has to be TikTok’s greatest nightmare. Let’s see what they, or their Chinese Communist Party overlords can do about it.

Another day, another TikTok ban on government devices. This time it’s the UK government:

Chinese-owned social media app TikTok is set to be banned on phones and other devices used by government ministers and civil servants on security grounds.

Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden will make a statement to MPs later. 

There has been no official comment – but Security Minister Tom Tugendhat had asked the National Cyber Security Centre to review the issue. 

TikTok has strongly denied allegations that it hands users’ data to the Chinese government.

Well, the veracity of that last sentence is in question. But in any case, this is the latest ban of the popular social media app. And it’s not the biggest problem that it has right now. This is:

The Biden administration is threatening a potential ban of TikTok in the United States if its Chinese owners refuse to sell their stakes in the video sharing app, a source close to the company told NBC News on Thursday.

The source, however, cautioned that the company did not see this as a final order. 

The administration’s demand, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, signals a significant shift in the U.S. stance toward Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., which owns the popular video sharing app.

The White House and Treasury Department declined to provide comment to NBC News.

In a statement, a spokesperson for TikTok said: “If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access. The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing.”

Any divestiture by ByteDance Ltd. would have to be approved by the Chinese government. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday that the U.S. had failed to provide any evidence that TikTok poses a threat to its national security.

“The U.S. side should stop spreading false information on the issue of data security, stop unreasonably suppressing the enterprises concerned, and provide an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for enterprises of all countries to invest and operate in the U.S.,” the spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, said at a regular news briefing.

Based on how TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party responded to this latest threat of an outright ban of TikTok in the US, I am going to go out on a limb and say that TikTok is going to get banned unless either TikTok, ByteDance or the CCP blink. Because they have to know that if the US bans TikTok, other countries will do the same. Thus it might be time for the CCP, ByteDance and TikTok to start engaging with the US and others to address all the concerns that they have before they get wiped off the phones of millions.

The list of Canadian Cities is growing. Hot off the heels of this, and this ban by four provinces, TikTok has new bans deal with.  The Toronto Star says that the following cities have banned TikTok:

In a statement to the Star Monday, the City of Vaughan said that, “effective immediately,” TikTok is no longer allowed to be installed or used on city workers’ corporate devices.

Meanwhile, Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic took to Twitter on Monday morning to announce the app is being removed from all its corporate smartphones, out of an “abundance of caution.”

Oh yeah and this also happened:

On March 9, the province of Ontario announced a TikTok ban on all provincial government-issued devices — the last province to do so, after all other provinces and territories followed the federal example of barring the app from corporate devices. 

So if you’re TikTok, you have to wonder what is next. The momentum against TikTok is growing and it’s only a matter of time before everyone, everywhere bans TikTok. And you have to wonder what the Chinese Communist Party will do as a result of these bans.

Buckle up.

TikTok has a bunch of problems in a bunch of places at the moment. But its problems in the US have just gotten worse. Here’s how that is the case:

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, the former employee, who worked for six months in the company’s Trust and Safety division ending in early 2022, said the issues could leave data from TikTok’s more than 100 million U.S. users exposed to China-based employees of its parent company ByteDance, even as the company races to implement new safety rules walling off domestic user information.

His allegations threaten to undermine this $1.5 billion restructuring plan, known as Project Texas, which TikTok has promoted widely in Washington as a way to neutralize the risk of data theft or misuse by the Chinese government. 

They could also fuel speculation that the wildly popular short-video app remains vulnerable to having its video-recommendation algorithm and user data distorted for propaganda or espionage. U.S. authorities have not shared evidence that the Chinese government has accessed TikTok’s data or code.

Well, if you’re TikTok you’re thinking that you’re in deep trouble here. They’ve already pushed back on his claims. But at this point, nothing the company says is going to make lawmakers on Capitol Hill feel different and a ban via the RESTRICT act is likely. And that ban is likely to be copied by other countries which means that TikTok could disappear from millions of phones in short order.

It sucks to be TikTok.

Belgium becomes the latest country to ban TikTok as news is out that Belgian federal government employees will no longer be allowed to use the Chinese-owned video app TikTok on their work phones, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said today:

De Croo said the Belgian national security council had warned of the risks associated with the large amounts of data collected by TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, and the fact that the company is required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services. “That is the reality,” the prime minister said in a statement. “That’s why it is logical to forbid the use of TikTok on phones provided by the federal government. The safety of our information must prevail.” The European Commission and the European Parliament last month banned TikTok from staff phones due to growing concerns about the company, and whether China’s government could harvest users’ data or advance its interests.

It’s now getting to the point where I am wondering who is next to ban TikTok. Clearly there is momentum building around the world to get TikTok off of government phones. Thus you have to wonder when and not if that’s going to spread to everyone else. Perhaps that could happen as soon as the RESTRICT act is passed in the US?

The bad news for TikTok continues to pile up. Hot on the heels of a likely ban in the US, comes news that the city of Hamilton Ontario which is just west of Toronto is going not only ban TikTok from city issued devices, but they have also “paused” their TikTok account which they created this year:

In a notice on Friday, the city’s director of communications pointed directly at federal and some provincial government bans as motivation for a similar directive targeted for city staff.

He said the ban was “out of an abundance of caution” after consultation with the IT division, senior leadership and social media team.

“In addition, the city’s Communications TikTok account will be paused and made dormant while staff await result of the Federal Office of the Privacy Commissioner probe alongside privacy regulators from provinces of Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta,” Matthew Grant said in an update.

Well, that’s not good if you’re TikTok as it’s all these bans and investigations into the social media app are going to make the average citizen think twice about having it on their phones. If I were ByteDance, I would extremely concerned as these bans clearly have momentum now.

I’ve been saying for a while that given the fact that TikTok hasn’t really done anything to take the fact that it is Chinese owned and the Chinese Communist Party exerts influence in how it operates, it should be banned. It now appears that a ban is coming in the US. There’s a bill that is making its way through the Senate that has White House backing called the RESTRICT act:

The legislation would empower the Commerce Department to review deals, software updates or data transfers by information and communications technology in which a foreign adversary has an interest. TikTok, which has become a viral sensation in the U.S. by allowing kids to create and share short videos, is owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance.

Under the new proposal, if the Commerce secretary determines that a transaction poses “undue or unacceptable risk” to U.S. national security, it can be referred to the president for action, up to and including forced divestment.

The bill was dubbed the RESTRICT Act, which stands for Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally unveiled the legislation on Capitol Hill alongside a bipartisan group of Senate co-sponsors. The White House issued a statement publicly endorsing the bill while Warner was briefing reporters.

“This bill presents a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement, adding that it would give the government new tools to mitigate national security risks in the tech sector.

Sullivan urged Congress “to act quickly to send the bill to the President’s desk.”

“Critically, it would strengthen our ability to address discrete risks posed by individual transactions, and systemic risks posed by certain classes of transactions involving countries of concern in sensitive technology sectors,” said Sullivan.

A TikTok spokeswoman did not respond Tuesday to CNBC’s request for comment.

TikTok has to be freaking right now as a ban in the US would likely create a domino effect of other countries banning TikTok. So one has to wonder how TikTok will respond to this as if they lose in the US, they lose everywhere.

This should be interesting to watch.

UPDATE: Kevin Bocek, VP Ecosystem and Community at Venafi had this comment:

The recently introduced RESTRICT Act would establish new, broad powers for the US Government to target possible threats to national security, personal privacy, and competitive threats. This goes well beyond a TikTok ban. It could change everything, from the phones in our pockets, to who gets to use emerging AI. And it brings back memories of the Encryption Wars of the 1990s when governments sought to control encryption technologies that we take for granted with bans and backdoors.

We’re now at a serious point in time, where the technologies in our pockets, homes, streets, businesses, airports and beyond can be used as part of kinetic warfare. And the RESTRICT Act targets the issues that we must face in the West.

Governments are finally waking up to the fact that adversaries don’t just use missiles and tanks – but instead, they take advantage of modern-day technology, controlled by machines connecting to the Internet. The worrying reality is that this technology can be monitored and controlled. For example, cranes built in China that offload containers from ships can not only be monitored but also potentially hijacked to create chaos and damage. Likewise, technologies from generative AI, to the graphic cards that make machine learning happen, are available globally and can be abused by adversaries.

The potential impact of the RESTRICT Act isn’t just a ban on TikTok. It’s the opening to what’s likely to be a decades long technology Cold War. One where the machines and software they run – which powers economies and innovation – will become a battleground for governments looking to stop adversaries in the AI, always-connected, and cloud computing driven age.

First TikTok was banned on Canadian government devices by the Canadian government. Now TikTok has been banned on the devices of four provinces in Canada. Those provinces are:

• Saskatchewan
• Nova Scotia 
• PEI
• Newfoundland and Labrador

It should be noted that Alberta and Quebec have a TikTok ban in place. And I think it’s safe to say that other provinces and territories in Canada will be announcing similar bans. This is going increase the pressure on ByteDance who is facing similar bans in other places. Not to mention that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner is investigating TikTok. One has to wonder at what point do TikTok, or their Chinese Communist Party masters respond to this growing wave of bans on TikTok in Canada.

This will be interesting to watch.

The problems for TikTok continue as news is coming out that the Chinese owned social media app has been Banned on all Canadian government devices. This is what The President of the Treasury Board, Mona Fortier had to say:

“The Government of Canada is committed to keeping government information secure. We regularly monitor our systems and take action to address risks. 

“Effective February 28, 2023, the TikTok application will be removed from government-issued mobile devices. Users of these devices will also be blocked from downloading the application in the future. Following a review of TikTok, the Chief Information Officer of Canada determined that it presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.

The decision to remove and block TikTok from government mobile devices is being taken as a precaution, particularly given concerns about the legal regime that governs the information collected from mobile devices, and is in line with the approach of our international partners. On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone.

“While the risks of using this application are clear, we have no evidence at this point that government information has been compromised.

“For the broader public, the decision to use a social media application or platform is a personal choice. However, the Communications Security Establishment’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre) guidance strongly recommends that Canadians understand the risks and make an informed choice on their own before deciding what tools to use.”

This falls into line with an EU government ban along with a US Government ban on TikTok. Not to mention an ongoing investigation by the Privacy Commissioner and calls for an outright ban from a US Senator. And this also means that TikTok is in deep trouble here. These government bans are becoming more and more frequent. And you can expect that when, not if, the first country bans TikTok outright, other countries will quickly follow suit. And the thing is that TikTok really hasn’t expressed any reason that I can find to give any government a reason to stop this sort of thing from happening. Thus it leaves them insanely vulnerable from being wiped off millions of phones in 2023.

TikTok faces a lot of headwinds in a lot places. And that list seems to be growing. Let’s start with Canada, where three provinces and Canada’s Privacy Commissioner are launching an investigation into TikTok:

The investigation was initiated in the wake of now settled, class action lawsuits in the United States and Canada, as well as numerous media reports related to TikTok’s collection, use and disclosure of personal information.

The four privacy regulators will examine whether the organization’s practices are in compliance with Canadian privacy legislation and in particular, whether valid and meaningful consent is being obtained for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. The investigation will also determine if the company is meeting its transparency obligations, particularly when collecting personal information from its users.

An important proportion of TikTok users are younger users. Given the importance of protecting children’s privacy, the joint investigation will have a particular focus on TikTok’s privacy practices as they relate to younger users, including whether the company obtained valid and meaningful consent from these users for the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information.

That in itself is bad if you’re TikTok. But combine that with this news that TikTok has been banned from the devices of EU staff, it gets worse:

The European Union’s two biggest policy-making institutions have banned TikTok from staff phones for cybersecurity reasons, marking growing concerns about the Chinese short video-sharing app and its users’ data.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, is under scrutiny from governments and regulators because of concerns that China’s government could use its app to harvest users’ data or advance its interests.

EU industry chief Thierry Breton, who announced a ban by the European Commission, declined to say whether the Commission had been subject to any incidents involving TikTok.

An official also said on Thursday that staff at the EU Council, which brings together representatives of the member states to set policy priorities, would also have to un-install TikTok from their personal phones with access to EU Council services.

This is following this action by the US government to punt TikTok from government devices. Not to mention pressure in the US to ban TikTok outright.

Chris Vaughan, AVP – Technical Account Management, EMEA, Tanium:

   “These national bans are part of a wider issue about how much Chinese influence is deemed acceptable when it comes to national infrastructure and everyday life. We have seen concerns increase in the West in recent months, with the use of Chinese surveillance technology being restricted and Chinese computer chips being rejected. There have been numerous reports of Chinese efforts to sway politicians by way of lobbying and donations, and the public via social media and the spread of disinformation.”
 
   “Historically, Russia has been the most prominent user of information operations as we saw from its activities related to the 2016 US election and the Brexit referendum. China has been more focused on stealing intellectual property which it can then use to its own advantage. However, there are indications that the CCP will start to focus more on information and influence operations to achieve its strategic goals. Any instances of this need to be met head on by western political leaders who should take a strong stance against it at the government level, rather than leaving the responsibility to individual institutions like colleges.”

Matt Marsden, VP, Technical Account Management, Tanium had this to add:

   “We’ve recently seen steps taken by the government in the US, at both the state and federal level, to ban TikTok from state-owned devices, so it’s no surprise to see the EU do so as well. This is a good start, but a more comprehensive approach needs to be taken to protect our citizens from social media campaigns designed to further foreign political objectives.

   “Chinese intelligence tactics are focused on longer-term objectives and are fueled by the sustained collection of data. The immense collection of user data, to now include commerce and purchasing information, combined with biometrics and activity tracking, feeds detailed intelligence to be used in operations. This data can be leveraged to deliver targeted, timely, and often personalized psychological operations against individuals or groups of citizens. This has been observed during election cycles and politically charged events in recent years. “

This isn’t a good look if you’re TikTok because nobody trusts ByteDance who owns TikTok. And nothing they do right now seems to be able to stop bans and investigations from happening. In my mind, it’s only a matter of time before someone lowers the boom on them, the US for example, and then other countries will follow suit. Which will likely spell the end of TikTok.