Movement to ban TikTok: What midterms could mean for future of app

The effort to ban TikTok is gaining more supporters, and it could become stronger after the midterm elections.

The effort to ban TikTok is back, and it could gain more strength after the midterm elections. 

Former Trump administration officials, a communications regulator, conservative commentators and several Republican lawmakers have been working in recent months to revive the Trump-era movement to ban TikTok, or at least to force a spinoff of the video app from its Chinese parent company. 

The suggestion that TikTok might disappear from app stores or stop working on U.S. phones might seem absurd to the millions of people who turn to it as a source of entertainment and information. But critics have never given up the idea of banning it, and some consider it a piece of unfinished business from  when then-President Donald Trump tried and failed to ban downloads of TikTok in 2020. 

TikTok becoming highly influential in midterm electionsNov. 3, 202202:34TikTok’s critics say they fear that Americans’ data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government and that Chinese authorities are determining what Americans see on a major media platform — concerns that TikTok says are unfounded. 

In June, BuzzFeed News reported that China-based employees of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, had accessed nonpublic data about U.S. users. TikTok denied turning over U.S. data to Chinese officials and said it never would, though it acknowledged that Chinese employees have some access to it. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-ban-midterm-election-vote-china-security-rcna49533

---