On January 10, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on TikTok’s bid to block a federal law requiring the video-sharing application’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. operations or risk a full ban in the country. Many U.S. lawmakers and intelligence officials, as well as Chinese democracy advocates, argue that the Chinese government could exploit TikTok to spy on Americans, spread pro-Beijing propaganda, or interfere in U.S. elections.
Although Freedom House agrees that apps like TikTok do present serious national security and human rights concerns, we do not endorse the law in question or a ban of TikTok. Outright bans of platforms affect how millions of people express themselves, access information, and participate in civic affairs, and such a ban in the United States could inspire harmful emulation by other countries. There are alternative approaches that would tackle legitimate human rights and national security concerns in a more proportionate way.
However, Washington is right to scrutinize the proliferation of Chinese apps in the United States. Many social media platforms, regardless of their country of origin, are rife with false and misleading information and irresponsibly collect and share user data for the sake of profit, but Chinese tech companies are more at risk of being used as political tools by the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In fact, no effort to counter Beijing’s malign influence would be complete if it failed to examine another Chinese app, WeChat. While WeChat, owned by the Chinese tech giant Tencent, does not enjoy the same popularity in the United States as TikTok, its influence within China and among the Chinese diaspora is extraordinarily deep. Many first-generation Chinese outside the country rely on WeChat as their exclusive digital information resource. Independent researchers, media groups, and civil society organizations have documented how WeChat users outside of China face censorship and surveillance on the platform. (Tencent was recently listed by the U.S. Defense Department as a company with ties to the Chinese military.)
Diaspora usage of WeChat is motivated in part by the need to communicate with those still in China. “I always say, our China-based friends and relatives are hostage held by CCP through WeChat,” the prominent New York–based Chinese journalist Vivian Wu wrote on X. “They only use WeChat, so if you still want to keep in touch with the locals … then you have to use WeChat. Then you are bound to be subject to this surveillance and control web.”
To be clear, people in China do not stick to WeChat by choice, but because they have few alternatives: the Chinese government has blocked all major international social media and messaging apps.
This “hate-it-but-can’t-leave-it” feeling about WeChat is widely shared among the Chinese diaspora. “WeChat is a formidable United Front tool of the CCP, its harms are even bigger than TikTok,” a Chinese person living in the United States said. On his X account, the man detailed the relentless censorship of his WeChat account and complained that “the U.S. government has done little to support Chinese Americans like me who strive for free speech in this country.”
The U.S. government can and should do something about WeChat, but it needs to exercise caution. In 2020, when the first administration of President Donald Trump attempted to ban WeChat through an executive order, it was blocked by a court based on First Amendment free-speech concerns and the hardships it could cause to communities that use the app as a primary means of communication. Under international human rights standards, while it is legitimate in some cases for governments to take actions that effectively limit speech or access to information, such restrictions must be necessary, proportionate, and transparent. Governments should first take the least restrictive measures available to address the problem at hand. If those fail, then more restrictive policies may be justified.
Congress could begin by holding hearings to better understand the scope, nature, and impact of politicized censorship and surveillance on WeChat, and then explore avenues for pressuring the company to uphold U.S.-based users’ rights to free expression and privacy. Hearings should feature testimonies from Chinese activists and ordinary users who have encountered censorship and surveillance on the platform in the United States, as well as executives from Tencent. Leaders of other tech companies, including Google, Meta, X (formerly known as Twitter), and TikTok, have all been called before Congress in the past. Lawmakers should also write formal letters to Tencent, asking explicit questions regarding its data protection, moderation, and official account policies as they relate to users in the United States.
At the same time, Congress should adopt laws that require tech companies to be transparent about their recommendation and data-collection systems, to engage in risk mitigation efforts and reporting on human rights due diligence, and to provide platform data to vetted researchers. This approach would force all such companies, including those with ties to China or other authoritarian states, to operate more responsibly and better protect U.S.-based users’ data, while shedding light on foreign governments’ influence over them.
Malign CCP influence through social media is a very real problem, but an effective solution must be well informed and well calibrated.
