Of all the tech juggernauts facing government critique, skepticism and regulatory action in the past few months, none have experienced the kind of bipartisan targeting as TikTok.
A lot of that backlash has to do not just with the social media platform’s ubiquity, but its country of origin — and that worries people who see history repeating itself.
The global cultural phenomenon is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which has alarmed US lawmakers who fear alleged security concerns. Congress passed and President Joe Biden in April signed a bill that would ban the social media app nationwide unless it’s sold to a non-Chinese parent company.
California resident Cynthia Choi, 57, is not interested in defending tech companies. But in this bill, which was signed right before the US commemoration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, she sees an insidious undercurrent.
“The singling out of TikTok makes Asian Americans feel they have a target on their backs,” said Choi, who is co-executive director of the advocacy group Chinese for Affirmative Action.
“We do believe that there are legitimate national security and economic concerns,” she added. “What we are concerned about is the tone and manner in which these issues are brought up. How racist the Senate was in terms of their line of questioning of the TikTok CEO after he repeatedly said he was Singaporean.”
Cynthia Choi (Courtesy Stop AAPI Hate)
This is not the US government’s first attempt to ban TikTok. The Trump administration tried in 2020, alleging data transfers to the Chinese Communist Party. No evidence was found, and federal courts blocked the sanction.
Choi stressed that this action toward TikTok must be viewed within the broader context of foreign policy and immigration fears. Fearmongering by politicians opens the door, she said, for discriminatory policies and hate toward Asian Americans. She pointed to examples such as land bans and wording in…
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