A majority of Americans see China’s popular TikTok app as a Chinese tool meant to influence and shape U.S. public opinion, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Some 58 percent of respondents agreed with that the Chinese government uses TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, to “influence American public opinion,” while 13 percent disagreed, with the rest saying they were unsure or didn’t answer, according to a report by Reuters.
Shou Zi Chew, chief executive officer of TikTok Inc., during an interview at the TikTok office in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg/Getty)
Meanwhile, 46 percent of Americans agreed that China uses TikTok to “spy on everyday Americans.”
The survey also found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to see China using the app to influence opinions in the United States. Moreover, 50 percent of Americans supported banning TikTok, while 32 percent opposed a ban. The rest were unsure.
A majority of Americans, 60 percent, also said it was inappropriate for U.S. political candidates to use the Chinese app to promote their campaigns.
Notably, the survey only featured U.S. adult respondents, so the results do not reveal the views of U.S. kids and teens under the age of 18, a demographic that makes up a significant amount of U.S. TikTok users.
Additionally, six in ten respondents aged 40 or older support a TikTok ban, with only four in ten respondents aged 18 to 39 concurring.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online and collected responses from 1,022 U.S. adults across the country. The survey reportedly had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
As Breitbart News reported, several former TikTok employees have come out saying the company’s claim that it was walling off U.S. user data from ByteDance, which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), only applied to the “front door” while the app left the back door wide open.
Last week, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months (by January 19) or face a ban in the United States.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew responded to the sell-or-ban legislation saying the Chinese parent company plans to use America’s laws against the United States to fight the sell-or-ban legislation in court, declaring, “The Constitution is on our side.”
ByteDance, meanwhile, says it prefers that TikTok just shuts down in the United States if its legal challenge fails in court.
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