Ahead of elections, candidates debate whether to ban TikTok or use it

When Joe Biden joined TikTok on the eve of the Super Bowl last month, political scientist Maggie Macdonald was struck by what she called the “meta” nature of the president’s first post.

In the video, Biden poked fun at a conspiracy theory that he rigged the Super Bowl — in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs — to somehow help his reelection efforts.

“Yeah, I’m old, but I’m on TikTok, and I’m on this super online place talking about this super online concept,” Macdonald, an assistant political science professor at the University of Kentucky, said of the messaging and tone of Biden’s video.

While Biden’s debut on the wildly popular social media app came in a playful manner, his use of TikTok in this year’s reelection campaign is at the heart of a heated debate in Washington, D.C., about whether the service should even exist in the U.S. The app, owned by China’s ByteDance, is viewed as both an invaluable tool in trying to reach masses of young potential voters who are unplugged from mainstream media and an easy way, allegedly, for the Chinese government to spy on American consumers.

Members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party introduced a bill this week that would require ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a U.S. ban, following earlier federal and state-led efforts that never came to fruition. On Thursday, the committee voted 50-0 to send the bill to the House floor.  

Shortly after the committee advanced the bill, Rep. Troy Balderson, R-Ohio, called TikTok “a surveillance tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans and harvest highly personal data.”

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has denied in Senate hearings any ties between the app and the CCP. In a statement to CNBC on Thursday, TikTok said, “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free…