Gordon Chang to Newsmax: TikTok Ought to be Nationally Banned

TikTok, the subsidiary of the Chinese-owned ByteDance, ought to be banned, author and lawyer Gordon Chang told Newsmax Monday.

"There should be a national ban unless we can arrange a sale of TikTok to an American party, which controls the algorithm," Chang said during his appearance on "Spicer & Co."

"The problem with the negotiations that are now going on over data security between Tiktok and the Biden administration is that they contemplate giving the federal government extraordinary control over the social media app, and that's a First Amendment problem," said Chang.

Speaking in light of the revelations presented in "The Twitter Files," specifically regarding government collusion with social media companies, Chang reasoned that giving the government control over TikTok lies a "potential for abuse."

According to David Sacks, vice chair of Craft Ventures, when the Biden administration's Department of Homeland Security was soft-pitching its Disinformation Governance Board to the public, "people were outraged by it."

The disinformation board, said Sacks, while also alluding to the Twitter Files, "was not a new initiative but rather an attempt to make formal that which was informal."

Within that rationale, Chang argues the U.S. government's negotiations should cease.

Chang expanded on his answer by painting a picture of China potentially spying on Americans who are subsequently monitoring other Americans.

Chang's example derived from Articles 7 and 14 of China's National Intelligence Law of 2017.

The law "requires Intelligence Law of 2017 requires every Chinese individual and national to spy if they receive a demand to do so," said Chang.

The Newsmax guest added: "So when ByteDance says, 'No, we would never spy for the Chinese government,' they're under a legal compulsion to spy."

On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that ByteDance's employees had inappropriately gained access to American users' data.

In a memo to employees, TikTok CEO Shou Chew said "the individuals involved misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data."

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