Biden White House defends its TikTok partnerships amid app security concerns

The White House came to its own defense this week over its decision to use TikTok to do outreach targeting younger users in order to deliver important messaging, in spite of officials warning of the app’s security concerns.

The White House has frequently invited TikTok influencers and other public figures into the building to record content that delivered messages the administration felt it was important to relay to younger audiences.

Asked this week if the administration has any concerns about using TikTok within the walls of the presidential residence and workplace, the White House dismissed the notion. 

A spokesperson for the National Security Administration told Real Clear Politics this week that no posts have gone out from an official White House account on TikTok, but rather provides content that other influencers can post to the site.

According to the White House, no government officials have TikTok downloaded on their work phones, although it is unclear whether they are permitted to have it on their personal phones at work.

Last week Brendan Carr, a commissioner from the Federal Communications Commission, warned US government officials that TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, is perfectly positioned to transfer Americans’ user data directly to the Chinese Communist Party, and urged the government to ban the app. 

“I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban,” said Carr, adding that there isn’t “a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the CCP.”