58% of Americans Want TikTok Removed Due to Chinese Access of US User Data

Following revelations by Chinese employees that they can access U.S. user information directly, over half of Americans would like app stores to delete TikTok.

A new survey by The Trafalgar Group found that 58.6% of Americans would like TikTok removed from the app store. The survey results follow recent news that Chinese employees of TikTok’s parent company – the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-tied ByteDance – can access the data of U.S. users. Survey respondents voted against TikTok’s removal at 17.8% and 23.6% were uncertain.

The responses differed on the basis of participants’ political party, with 76.8 percent of Republicans saying they wanted TikTok removed while only 39.2 percent of Democrats said the same. 

Almost 57 percent of “No Party/Other” respondents wanted TikTok removed. 

Participation in the Trafalgar Group survey was slightly greater for Democrats than Republicans. The participants comprised approximately 53% females and 47% males.

It was completed between July 7 and 10, 2022. Trafalgar indicated 95 percent confidence with the survey, and a margin of error of 2.9%

TikTok repeatedly assured critics that U.S. users data were safe from Chinese access. But BuzzFeed News recently reported that TikTok’s parent company accessed non-public U.S. user data through the app and cited multiple tapes of internal meetings at TikTok. “Everything is seen in China,” one member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety Department said during a September 2021 meeting, according to BuzzFeed.

ByteDance has ByteCCP as a shareholder and has the CCP on its board. ByteDance was known for its support of CCP propaganda. Former ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming said that he wanted to use his platform to “promote ‘socialist core values’” and the CCP, according to The National Pulse.

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