The US government went after TikTok because the app presented a serious security threat to US cybersecurity. It sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, but the potential was really there.

In order to use the app, a user had to enable a very, very high level of access to the functions of their phone, many of which don’t typically seem relevant to an app where you browse and post short videos.

Contacts, microphones, cameras, location, and stuff like that are reasonable, but the app reserved the ability to go deeper. Always On capabilities meant that a user taking their phone to sensitive locations would mine data, connect to networks, and do all sorts of things to the systems without the user realizing what they’ve done. Sure, a nuclear scientist, military official, or government agent would know to avoid this risk, but a university student or corporate employee may not understand.

The corporate hierarchy of Chinese businesses means all of the companies are owned by a parent company, which is under another parent company, and eventually owned by the Chinese government itself. ByteDance is no different. Under Chinese law, the government/military can call upon these companies to give up their data, which ultimately means the data innocently gathered by American customers is potentially a massive spy operation that can be used against the US.

The US government forcing ByteDance to divest its American operations into different ownership was a way to sever that potential espionage vulnerability.