WeChat Banned, TikTok Saved

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of activity surrounding two Chinese apps, TikTok (Bytdance) and WeChat (Tencent) and their ability to continue to have a presence in the United States. The activity hit a crescendo Sept. 18 when the Department of Commerce announced prohibitions affecting the two apps, citing national security concerns as enumerated in EO 13942 (TikTok) and EO 13943 (WeChat), scheduled to take effect Sept. 20.

The prohibitions included:

  • Any provision of service to distribute or maintain the WeChat or TikTok mobile applications, constituent code, or application updates through an online mobile application store in the U.S.;
  • Any provision of services through the WeChat mobile application for the purpose of transferring funds or processing payments within the U.S.

Additionally, as of Sept. 20 for WeChat and Nov. 12 for TikTok, the following are prohibited:

  • Any provision of internet hosting services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
  • Any provision of content delivery network services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
  • Any provision directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services enabling the function or optimization of the mobile application within the U.S.;
  • Any utilization of the mobile application’s constituent code, functions, or services in the functioning of software or services developed and/or accessible within the U.S.

TikTok Saved

By the morning of Sept. 20, the landscape had adjusted for TikTok, with the prohibitions delayed until Sept. 27 at 11:59 p.m. to give ByteDance the opportunity to conclude a partnership with U.S.-based Oracle and Walmart. The bones of a partnership, which would create TikTok Global in partnership with Oracle and Walmart, have been hammered out. When TikTok Global IPOs, Oracle will take a 12.5% and Walmart 7.5% of the new company. In addition, the company will have five board seats, one of which will be occupied by Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillion.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump, at a campaign rally the evening of Sept. 19, announced he had “blessed” the deal and that the deal would include the creation of a US$5 billion education fund. Apparently this was news to ByteDance, which posted to a Chinese social media platform that the company was unaware and it was the first time it heard of such, though it did reference its intent to participate in advancing online classroom projects.

In a Sept. 19 joint statement from Oracle/Walmart, the two companies announced a commitment to create an “educational initiative to develop and deliver an AI-driven online video curriculum to teach children from inner cities to the suburbs a variety of course from basic reading and math to science, history and computer engineering.” The effort would involve a consortium of companies that would include TikTok Global together with Oracle, SIG, General Atlantic, Sequoia, Walmart and Coatue.

Should the details of the agreement be hammered out successfully, the U.S. instance of TikTok will run on the Oracle Generation 2 Cloud infrastructure to obviate the national security concerns the U.S. has enumerated—mainly the “collection of vast swaths of data from users.”

WeChat Banned

EO 13943 (WeChat) enumerates the perceived national security threat from the WeChat app to the citizens of the United States. The CliffsNotes version would say the app is a risk to U.S. users, given the collection of user data and availability of the data to the government of China to keep tabs on their citizens while in the United States. The EO explicitly cites the March 2019 discovery of a database containing content that had originated outside of China. This may have been referring to the discovery by security researcher Victor Gevers of a trove of 364 million records of what appeared to be WeChat and QQ user identity information and messages.

In addition, the WeChat platform has been used by the PRC as an avenue to share disinformation and misinformation, according to researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

The ban, which parallels that which China has long put in place with respect to foreign social media services being available in China, will force WeChat users to be creative in their ability to continue to use the application after Sept. 20 in the United States. Workarounds being suggested on Chinese social media are to register your device to a foreign service provider or utilize VPNs in much the same way that Chinese users do to tunnel through the Great Firewall of China.

There are approximately 3.3 million users of WeChat in the United States.

In a last-minute response to a motion brought to the court by WeChat users, a U.S. Federal Judge in California issued a preliminary injunction delaying the Sept. 20 prohibition.

Pushback on the Ban

China, not surprisingly, has threatened to place U.S. companies such as Apple, Google, Cisco Systems and others on the “unreliable entities list” in retaliation. This list, created in May 2019, effectively blacklists any domestic and international engagement/sales with China.

Meanwhile, the ACLU contends that banning the apps is a violation of users’ First Amendment rights by “restricting their ability to communicate and conduct important transactions.”

In sum, users of WeChat could very well be forced to find an alternative means to communicate immediately and conduct online commerce, while users of TikTok have a reprieve being ironed out that, if successful, will allow them to continue to use the app without interruption.

Christopher Burgess

Christopher Burgess (@burgessct) is a writer, speaker and commentator on security issues. He is a former Senior Security Advisor to Cisco and served 30+ years within the CIA which awarded him the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal upon his retirement. Christopher co-authored the book, “Secrets Stolen, Fortunes Lost, Preventing Intellectual Property Theft and Economic Espionage in the 21st Century”. He also founded the non-profit: Senior Online Safety.

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