For Canadian comedian Darcy Michael, TikTok became a way to not only share his standup routines, but also build a community with those on the app.
But for U.S. lawmakers and Canadian security officials, the app poses a significant threat both to privacy and national security because its parent company ByteDance is Chinese-owned.
As the U.S. inches closer to a potential ban of the application, Michael says restrictions on the app could have a big impact on Canadian content creators who’ve found audiences through it.
“I think it would take us a little bit back to square one, where I was always trying to reach my audience,” he told Global News.
Michael is currently on a North American tour, which he says saw him sell more than 50,000 tickets without a publicist or marketing team, using TikTok to market the shows.
With 3.2 million followers on the app, Michael says any possibility of Canada following in the U.S. footsteps would be concerning.
“I think it would be detrimental to musicians and artists of all kind, but also small businesses,” he said.
Why are security concerns different for TikTok?
Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share TikTok user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government.
A 2017 Chinese law requires companies to give the government any personal data relevant to the country’s national security, though the law is murky about what that threshold is.
A September 2022 intelligence brief reported on by The Canadian Press under access-to-information law also provided fresh insight into Canadian government concerns about TikTok.
The report said the brief by the Privy Council Office’s intelligence assessment secretariat says TikTok is the first Chinese-owned app to reach over a billion users beyond China, “creating a globally embedded and ubiquitous collection and influence platform for Beijing to exploit.”
“Despite assurances, there is growing evidence that TikTok’s data is accessible to China,” said the heavily edited brief, which was based on both open sources and classified information.
In a first-of-its-kind report on Chinese disinformation released in September 2023, the U.S. State Department alleged that ByteDance seeks to block potential critics of Beijing, including those outside of China, from using its platforms.
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The report said the U.S. government had information as of late 2020 that ByteDance “maintained a regularly updated internal list” identifying people who were blocked or restricted from its platforms — including TikTok — “for reasons such as advocating for Uyghur independence.”
A TikTok executive who testified before a Canadian parliamentary committee last year told MPs that the app is not controlled by the Chinese government. When asked about the Chinese national security law that critics of TikTok say could compel Bytedance to hand over information to Beijing, one of the executives at that committee said, “I’m not an expert in Chinese law.”
The company has said the same scrutiny being applied to it amid talk of a U.S. ban should apply to all social media companies as well.
Actions have been taken in Canada on the app, including banning it from the federal government’s mobile devices in February 2023. Other provinces did the same, as have officials in Australia and Europe.
“We’re making the decision for government employees, for government equipment, it is better to not have them access TikTok because of the concerns that people have in terms of safety,” Trudeau said at the time.
“This may be a first step. It may be the only step we need to take.”
On Thursday, a day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favour of banning TikTok unless ByteDance sells its stake in the business, The Canadian Press reported that the federal Liberals had ordered a national security review of the app in September 2023.
“Our government has never hesitated to (take) action, when necessary, if a case under review is found to be injurious to Canada’s national security,” a spokesperson for Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said.
It said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity, though it didn’t say what expansion it was reviewing.
On Friday, Champagne was asked if Canadians should worry about using the app, despite the review. He said the answer was no during a press conference, but asked later why the government kept the review secret if parents need not be concerned, he said that when he spoke about whether they should be “concerned,” he was referring to “actions being taken with respect to the company.”
Anything that happens as a result of the review would be “directed at the company and not the users,” he said.
University of Toronto associate professor of media economics Brett Caraway told Global News any potential ban in Canada could see Apple’s App Store or Google Play be required to not carry the app.
But the U.S. move requiring TikTok’s owner ByteDance to divest the app within six months may run into issues, Caraway notes, such as finding a buyer in that small time-frame.
For one thing, a company would need enough capital to take on such a property, and companies that could, like Meta or Google, would invite regulatory scrutiny and even risk anti-competitive behaviour.
In Canada, it could be “equally difficult” due to a smaller market.
“I don’t know that you would be able to make a carve-out for TikTok Canada necessarily that would be enticing enough or would avoid the same sort of regulatory scrutiny,” Caraway said.
Social Media Lab co-director Philip Mai at Toronto Metropolitan University added that given Canada’s market size, he would not be surprised if ByteDance would “simply pack up and home.”
He said the U.S. can make such a demand; Canada can’t.
He told Global News the Canadian government should look at long-term solutions like updating privacy laws and perhaps algorithm audits so Canadians know how and what is “being served” to us and why those videos are being seen.
“So this way we know how and what is being served to us and why those particular videos are being served to us,” Mai said. “There is no mechanism in the law right now that even would require any company to disclose any of that.”
— with files from Global News’ Sean Boynton and Jackson Proskow, and The Canadian Press
