Americans divided on TikTok ban even as Biden campaign joins the app: Poll results

U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to court younger voters ahead of the presidential elections, but U.S. adults have mixed views.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to court younger voters ahead of the presidential elections, but U.S. adults have mixed views about whether the video-sharing app should even operate in the country.

A new poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds a three-way split when it comes to banning the app, with 31% of U.S. adults saying they would favor a nationwide ban on TikTok use, while 35% say they would oppose that type of action. An additional 31% of adults say they neither favor nor oppose a ban on the social media platform, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. Among those who use TikTok at least daily, a national ban would likely be highly unpopular: 73% say they oppose it.

Talks of a TikTok ban reached a fever pitch in the U.S. early last year after a series of Western lawmakers, governments and regulators raised concerns that a set of Chinese laws could force the company to share user data with the country’s authoritarian government. Specific evidence of such an incident hasn’t been provided by the U.S. government or TikTok critics, who also posit the platform could be used to spread propaganda beneficial to the Chinese government’s interests or be used to bury or amplify certain topics.

TikTok has vigorously defended itself, saying in part that it has never shared data with the Chinese government and won’t do so if asked. The company also has promised to wall off U.S. user data from its parent company through a separate entity run independently from ByteDance and monitored by outside observers. TikTok says new user data is currently being stored on servers maintained by the software company Oracle.

The White House is expected to announce later this month new efforts it will take aimed at protecting Americans’ sensitive personal data from foreign adversaries, including China, according to a person familiar with the administration’s planning. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plan that has yet to be formally announced by the White House.

The Biden administration also reaffirmed this week there is an ongoing review of the platform by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which last year reportedly threatened to widely ban the app if its Chinese owners don’t divest their stakes.

Meanwhile, congressional efforts to enact a broader ban — including bipartisan legislation that doesn’t mention TikTok by name but would give the Commerce Department the power to review and potentially restrict its use — was stalled last year amid opposition from industry and digital rights groups, as well as some lawmakers, influencers and small businesses who use the platform.