The Biden administration is reportedly threatening to ban TikTok. most downloaded and one of most actively used apps in the country sparked suspicion and outrage among users on Thursday.

Some called it a violation of the 1st Amendment. Others have claimed it was a ploy to help Instagram Reels, a short video service from Facebook owner Meta. Some have wondered why TikTok has been singled out as a threat given how many apps collect their users’ personal data.

And some simply turned to politicians for sympathy. “Please don’t ban TikTok. My teenage son and I are enjoying ourselves there,” Twitter user Aimee Vance. tweetedand then added: “Together …”

Here’s a rundown of what’s happening and why, as well as some of the pros and cons of the administration’s position.

What does the administration want?

President Biden is trying to do what President Trump is trying to do: get TikTok out of the hands of a Chinese company that is subject to Chinese law. The app was created by ByteDance, an internet company founded in China in 2012. Although ByteDance has attracted some global investors, it is still controlled by its Chinese founders.

The Trump administration went so far as to ban TikTok in the US in 2020. blocked by two federal courtshowever, which ruled that the administration had overstepped its authority.

More recently, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a group of federal agencies that looks into the national security issues that arise from such investments, issued an ultimatum to ByteDance. Wall Street Journal and a few other outlets: sell TikTok or get banned in the United States. A TikTok spokesperson said the sale would not address national security concerns as it would not place any new restrictions on access to the app’s data.

TikTok’s CEO is due to testify at a congressional hearing next week. The company has offered to store U.S. user data in that country with technical and corporate protections designed to prevent Chinese government access. But US officials do not appear to be convinced that this approach will solve their problems.

Meanwhile, Congress is considering nationwide ban in applications controlled by the Chinese government. And the federal government, like many national and local governments around the world, has banned TikTok from devices issued to its employees. Orange County joined their ranks on Tuesday.

Can the government really ban TikTok?

Telecom industry experts say it’s technically possible, but there are problems.

The key players here are the two companies that make the dominant operating systems and app stores for mobile phones, Apple and Google. They could help the government enforce compliance by removing TikTok from their app stores, which would force anyone who wants to install or update the software on their phones to “download” it from some other source.

It’s not difficult on an Android phone, but it’s more difficult on an Apple iPhone – at least for now. Under US pressure another European governmentsApple will reportedly allow booting on the new operating system, which is expected to be released this year.

However, Apple and Google could go further by using their control of the software on their devices to make their phones incompatible with TikTok. At the very least, they can force current TikTok users to stick with the current version of the software, which will likely degrade in performance over time.

There is a trade-off to this approach, however, says Emma Llanso, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Without regular privacy and security updates, the app would be “a great target for people who want to use legacy software,” she said, adding, “It creates another vulnerability that will affect millions of people, including many young people.”

If the government officially outlawed TikTok, network operators could block traffic between the company’s servers and users in the US. But the app’s huge user base may rush to find ways to bypass any barriers, such as using VPNs to connect to TikTok across other countries, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at New America. “Smart Chinese know how, like this [it] it should be much easier here,” Calabrese said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes something special.”

Why is TikTok the target?

The Biden administration and members of Congress from both parties have been expressing concerns about TikTok for months. While some legislators have complained about the content of the network and its impact on young people, the main problem lies with the owners of the network.

Sarah Collins, senior policy adviser at advocacy group Public Knowledge, said the potential for exploitation by China’s authoritarian government is what makes the app’s privacy threats unique. “If TikTok was magically owned by an American company, we would be talking about it in the same breath with Google or Facebook,” she said.

TikTok collects a lot of data about its users, including their location and contacts, Collins said. Other companies do too, mainly because federal law does not protect this information. In fact, according to Collins, “there is an entire industry of data brokers selling this data.”

“It’s hard to sort out the TikTok issue when there’s a privacy issue in the US,” she said.

However, there are fears that the Chinese Communist Party or Chinese government officials will require access to data for purposes far less favorable than personalizing your video stream. According to Chinese law, ByteDance must share personal information relevant to national security whenever required by the government.

It is unclear what sensitive data, if any, the Beijing government has collected from TikTok. Part of the problem in evaluating the Biden administration’s stance, Llanso said, is that the intelligence community has not shared the information underlying its concern about TikTok and likely never will.

However, in December, the public saw TikTok’s potential for bullying when the company admitted that some of its employees were using the app to track the whereabouts of journalists. TikTok said employees were tracking news leaks within the company, but for some critics, the episode showed what the Chinese government can do with the platform.

Critics say the Chinese government could not only use the data TikTok already collects, but also force the app to collect additional information solely for government purposes. In addition to the surveillance threat, China may be manipulating TikTok video streams or the app itself to promote its propaganda, they said.

At a congressional hearing last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said TikTok had raised a number of national security concerns. “These include the possibility that the Chinese government can use it to control the collection of data on millions of users, or manage a recommendation algorithm that can be used for influencer operations if they so desire, or to control software on millions of devices, which gives him the ability to potentially technically compromise personal devices,” Ray said. according to National Public Radio.

And yet, according to Llanso, neither China nor TikTok are unique. Anyone using social media, she says, must assume that multiple governments are trying to influence them—not just authoritarian regimes, but Western democracies as well.