TikTok ban likely to spread to US allies

Analysts have suggested it is “just a matter of time” before the US ban on TikTok spreads to allied countries and beyond – if the Trump administration decides to keep it offline.

The app has been extinguished in America after US lawmakers determined it was a national security risk because of owner ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government — ties it denies.

However, President-elect Trump has indicated that he opposes the ban and will find a way to reverse it.

If the U.S. ban continues, experts point to the past expulsion of Chinese and Russian tech companies for national security reasons as a potential blueprint for how the TikTok ban could spread around the world.

“There are strong parallels between TikTok and what happened to China’s Huawei and Russia’s Kaspersky, indicating that it is only a matter of time before a creeping ban takes effect,” said Emily Taylor, editor of Cyber ​​Policy Journal.

In both cases, these companies were accused by the US of being a threat to national security – but no smoking gun was ever revealed by cyber security authorities.

The same has happened with TikTok.

Under President Trump, Kaspersky’s flagship antivirus software was banned from civilian and military computers in the United States after allegations emerged in 2017 that it was used by the Kremlin in a hacking incident that was never proven.

Britain followed suit almost immediately, and one by one other allies fell into line with restrictions, warnings or bans.

It took years, but eventually a nationwide ban went into effect last year in the US, but it was almost redundant at the time. Kaspersky closed its US operations, followed by its UK offices, saying there is no viable business there.

The company has always argued that the US government based its decision on the “geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns” rather than independently verifying risk.

According to research from Bitsight Kaspersky’s decline in usage after the ban was pronounced, not only in the United States, but also in at least 25 other countries, even those that have no overt public policy to ban the software.

Almost exactly the same thing happened with the Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

The US accused Huawei and other Chinese technology companies of being too close to the Chinese government. It argued that the company’s popular 5G kit should not be used to build telecommunications if it could be used to spy on or degrade communications.

A former Huawei UK employee said that once the US decided to ban, block or restrict Huawei, it became almost inevitable that allies would follow suit.

“The UK and others talked about independently coming to their own conclusions about security, but the US was relentless in its lobbying behind closed doors. They warned about the national security risks that were never backed up by evidence,” said the former insider, who did it. do not wish to be named.

Intense US lobbying of allies on security issues is often seen in many aspects of cyber policy.

It usually starts with countries in the Five Eyes Alliance.

The close intelligence sharing is between five English-speaking democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

So far, all members have banned TikTok from public entities and some have also issued public warnings. Canada has ordered an end to TikTok’s Canadian operations, citing national security concerns.

The Five Eyes effect could be significant, and restrictions have already spread with the app banned on devices belonging to government employees, officials or military personnel in countries including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Taiwan.

Ciaran Martin, who headed Britain’s National Cyber ​​Security Center during the Huawei and Kaspersky bans, agrees that generally when the US makes a national security or strategic decision about a company, Britain and allies eventually follow suit.

But as with everything to do with TikTok, he says there’s a big caveat in the form of the incoming Trump administration.

“What we don’t know yet is if TikTok will be the exception, since Trump has said he opposes the ban, will he order allies to copy a ban? We don’t know yet.”

Trump’s stance on TikTok has changed dramatically since his first term as president, when he tried to get it banned. Since then, he has gained a following after his re-election campaign gained support through TikTok videos.

Emily Taylor agrees that this unknown factor could make TikTok different from Huawei and Kaspersky.

“It depends on how much pressure the administration is willing to apply,” she told the BBC.

“If their foreign policy agenda is packed, it could fall down the list and leave countries waiting to force other allies to follow the ban.”

There are currently “no plans” for a TikTok ban in the UK, a government spokesman said on Saturday. “We are working with all major social media companies to understand their plans to ensure the security of UK data and to ensure they meet the high data protection and cyber security standards we expect.”

Meanwhile, British government minister Darren Jones told the BBC on Sunday: “We will not follow the same path as the Americans unless or until… there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest and so of course we will keep it under review.”

The app was banned from the UK Parliament in 2023 due to security concerns.

But Jones, the chief secretary of the Treasury, told Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that “for consumers who want to post videos of their cats dancing, that doesn’t seem like a security threat to me”.

Another aspect to consider about TikTok’s future post-US ban is whether the app can continue to thrive without an American customer base.

Any app that loses 170 million users will suffer, but US users in particular are valuable to creators, advertisers and direct consumption in the TikTok Shop.

If the rest of the West follows suit, it will reduce the money flowing into the company and limit the development of new features, further consolidating the dominance of American platforms such as Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat.

TikTok is already banned in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India too – a massive market. It has no presence in China due to its sister app Douyin.

Kaspersky and Huawei both managed to weather their storms by relying on homegrown customer bases and by pivoting to regions like Africa and the Middle East.

So it may be possible for TikTok to build its user bases here. However, if the US ban creeps around the world, the app will likely never be as big as it currently is, and may well wither and die a slow death.