President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to court younger voters ahead of the presidential election, but American adults have mixed opinions about whether the video-sharing app should even work in the country.
A new poll from The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows a three-way split when it comes to banning the app, with 31% of American adults saying they support a nationwide ban on TikTok use, while 35% say they support a nationwide ban on TikTok use. would oppose such actions. Another 31% of adults say they are neither for nor against a ban on the social media platform, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.
Talks of a TikTok ban 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 . No specific evidence of such an incident has been provided by the US government or TikTok critics, who also argue that the platform can be used to spread propaganda that benefits the interests of the Chinese government, or can be used to promote certain topics to bury or strengthen.
TikTok has vigorously defended itself, saying, among other things, that it has never shared data with the Chinese government and will not do so if asked. The company has also pledged to shield U.S. user data from its parent company through a separate entity that is managed independently of ByteDance and monitored by third-party monitors. TikTok says new user data is currently being stored on servers maintained by software company Oracle.
The White House reaffirmed this week that there is an ongoing review of the platform by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which last year reportedly threatened to ban the app widely if its Chinese owners do not divest their interests.
Meanwhile, congressional efforts to enact a broader ban — including bipartisan legislation that would not mention TikTok by name but would give the Commerce Department the power to review and potentially restrict its use — stalled last year brought amid industry opposition. and digital rights groups, as well as some lawmakers, influencers and small businesses using the platform.
The AP-NORC survey shows that TikTok users — about 170 million in the U.S., most of whom are younger — are less likely to be concerned about the app sharing U.S. users’ data, reflecting a previously perceived generational divide . About a quarter of daily users say they are “extremely or very concerned” about the idea of the Chinese government obtaining users’ personal data, compared with about half of U.S. adults overall.
“It’s a hot potato for politicians,” said Dan Ives, a technical analyst at the financial advisory firm Wedbush Securities. “Because (they) want to sound tough in a certain way in front of the microphone. But the reality is that it can backfire.”
A majority of U.S. adults, 56%, said they support a more limited TikTok ban on government devices, such as government employee computers and phones. Such bans have been introduced by at least 36 states, the federal government and several other countries, as well as the European Union. About a quarter of U.S. adults are neutral on blocking TikTok from government devices, while 17% are opposed.
The Biden campaign has said it is using a separate cell phone for TikTok to isolate the app from other communications and has taken additional measures to protect it. Some Republicans have criticized the decision.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, also told reporters Monday that he remained concerned about the social media platform.
“We still need to find a way to follow India, which has banned TikTok,” Warner said. “I’m a little concerned about getting a mixed message.â€
In response to a question about whether the campaign’s use of the app neutralizes the safety concerns raised, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said: “We are hopeful that policymakers – from both parties – recognize the progress. efforts we have made in securing protected US user data, an effort that has given us a significant advantage over other similar companies in this space.”
Last year, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined the app in an effort to reach younger voters, despite calling it “digital fentanyl” that should be banned. Other Republican candidates found other methods to get their messages on the platform, such as creating video clips that could be shared between apps or partnering with conservative influencers already on the app.
The poll also found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults — and 41% of daily TikTok users — are “extremely or very concerned” about the amount of time children and teens spend on TikTok. A majority of adults, 59%, say they are concerned about the spread of misinformation through the app, while about half are concerned about people doing dangerous or illegal things they see others doing on the platform, less so is felt among TikTok users.
TikTok said last year it was introducing time limits for minors. But these restrictions still allow teens to continue viewing content after entering a passcode.
The company says it is also strengthening its work to combat disinformation, including working with more global fact-checking organizations. This week, TikTok said it would set up fact-checking hubs in the app to help counter false information in the upcoming European Union elections.
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AP journalist Linley Sanders contributed from Washington.
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The survey of 1,152 adults was conducted from January 25 to 29, 2024, using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points for all respondents.