TikTok as a tool — but for whom?

Opinion

Canada already considers TikTok a threat to national security and the lives of many Canadian youth who, a recent investigation showed, collect huge amounts of personal data on every one of its users.

But could it also become a tool to bring U.S. President Donald Trump’s dreams of swallowing Canada up as the 51st state closer to reality?

In theory, if the deal to sell U.S. operations to American investors goes through — and there is no certainty it will at the moment — then conditions are ripe for an abuse by the Trump administration of the data collected by TikTok. And the data are extensive.

U.S. and Canadian authorities have already expressed their concerns that TikTok — which is used by billions of people worldwide — is providing the personal information it collects on its users to the Chinese government. TikTok has denied this repeatedly, but Chinese law allows government to access on demand private data from any app operated on its soil.

Thus, both Canada and the U.S. have pressured TikTok to divest its operations or face the prospect of having the app blocked for use. The U.S. passed a law to force TikTok to divest or face blockage, while Canada last year ordered the company to shut down its Canadian operations.

These threats remain, at this point, just threats. TikTok continues to operate in both countries, without any kind of limitation.

The new wrinkle in this prolonged geopolitical and technology drama comes from an announcement by the White House that a deal had been reached between the U.S. and China, and the company, to sell TikTok’s algorithm and U.S. operations to American investors.

Although that might seem to be a step forward towards a more secure future for TikTok, questions have been raised in both companies about the American investors involved in this deal: Oracle founder Larry Ellison; Dell CEO Michael Dell; and Lachlan Murdoch, son of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch and heir apparent to his vast media empire.

The Trump administration said Ellison would be charged with overseeing the algorithm to ensure that, according to government officials, it is not used for a “malicious purpose.” But what purposes would be allowed? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued this past weekend that the purchase of TikTok was a critical and strategic move that could be used to garner support for Israel.

The concern for Canada is that there is nothing in this bare-bones deal that suggests any legal or regulatory effort to stop the TikTok algorithm from collecting personal data. The harvesting of our every click and proclivity will apparently continue.

If the information being collected by the TikTok algorithm has meaningful strategic value for Trump — and it’s not hard to imagine that it would — then you can bet it will ask for and receive any information from behind the curtain of TikTok’s American operations on demand.

The entire “deal” to carve off a huge chunk of TikTok’s operations and put them into the hands of a small group of hand-picked investors certainly does not seem to have been fair or transparent. Trump has been directly involved in the negotiations, and while his administration denies that it would have a seat on the board or any other official involvement, the tiny group of billionaires Trump has identified certainly owes the president some sort of debt of gratitude.

What form will the payment on that debt take? Therein lies the concern for Canada, and other nations, which are left helpless as the U.S. tilts the social media playing field in its direction.

For what purpose? Only the president knows for sure.