Social media giant TikTok poses a “very serious threat” to Australians and will remain unsafe unless its relationship with Beijing is “severed”, opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson says.
Speaking on Sunday, Mr Paterson said that while the Coalition wasn’t yet supportive of an outright ban on the platform, he said the government should support growing efforts by US lawmakers to split TikTok’s US operations off from its Beijing-based parent ByteDance.
“If the United States successfully removes TikTok from ByteDance, Australia should seek to do the same,” the Victorian senator told the ABC’s Insidersprogram.
Calling on the government to “take action”, Mr Patterson said the app was a risk to Australia’s democracy and national security.
“The end that I hope for is that Australians can continue to use TikTok, but just without the risk that their data is abused and without the risk that the Chinese Communist Party can put its thumb on the algorithm to pump disinformation into our democracy.
“I know for a fact intelligence agencies are not saying to the Prime Minister: ‘There’s nothing to worry about with TikTok – there’s no concerns at all.’
“We know that’s not the case.”
The short video sharing service, which boasts approximately 8.5 million domestic users who are predominantly teenagers and young adults, is among Australia’s most downloaded apps.
But hawkish politicians and security analysts in Australia and abroad have grown increasingly wary of the platform, citing concerns that the Chinese government could force TikTok’s Beijing-based parent ByteDance to hand over user data, or use the platform to sow division and promote propaganda.
TikTok says it will not hand over data to China, and seeks to remove misinformation from its platform.
In recent days, legislation that would force the sale of TikTok’s US-based segment from ByteDance, or shut down the platform across the country entirely should it fail to comply, has gathered considerable backing among US lawmakers when it was overwhelmingly passed by Congress’ lower house.
Blindsiding TikTok at first, the app has since mobilised considerable support from its users, urging some to contact their local representatives via an in-app notification.
Should the bill pass the Senate, where legislators appear less supportive, President Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the legislation into law, likely opening the legislation up to a legal challenge on the grounds it impinges on the First Amendment.
Chinese government officials have also voiced their opposition to the US’ push to force TikTok’s sale, signalling to ByteDance they would rather see a ban enforced, according to media reports.
An outcome where ByteDance refuses to divest from the $160bn app, forcing its prohibition and consequently reducing its value, would be “revealing”, Senator Paterson said.
“That would be a very irrational choice, but it will be quite an illustrative choice because I suspect ByteDance would operate as an extension of the Chinese government, not as a commercial entity.”
Senator Paterson also called on the government to enact tough new transparency requirements on TikTok and other platforms like WeChat as recommended by a Senate committee that probed the risk of foreign interference through social media.
“They need to be transparent about the relationship they have with foreign governments and about the direction that they receive from foreign governments to interfere with content on a platform,” he said.
“Those recommendations are there for the government to implement at any time … I really hope they do so.”
Pressed on whether the matter should be raised when China’s most powerful diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, visits Canberra next week, Senator Paterson said it was “not a high priority issue”
“The foreign minister and the prime minister have a long list of issues to raise with [Mr Wang], particularly the death sentence facing the Australian citizen Yang Hengjun.“