April 24, 2023
The opposition spokesman for home affairs, James Paterson, wants Commonwealth advertising on TikTok stopped after concerns about national security led to the Chinese-owned social media app being banned from government-issued devices.
“The weight of evidence is clear, and a government advertising policy that permits taxpayer dollars to support a platform which presents such significant national risks is untenable,” Mr Paterson said in a letter to Finance Minister Katy Gallagher on Friday.
“I urge you to take immediate action to prevent the use of TikTok for government advertising to address these concerns.”
The letter was prompted by reports in The Australian Financial Review last week, which revealed updated advice from the Department of Finance giving the green light to trials of government advertising campaigns on TikTok, despite the device ban.
The Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, which is chaired by Senator Paterson, is looking closely at Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat as well as US-headquartered Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), Google, Snapchat and Twitter.
Seth Kaplan, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, told the committee last week that WeChat, owned by Chinese tech firm Tencent, posed a significant security risk to Australia.
“Everything that we fear about what TikTok may become already is occurring on WeChat,” Mr Kaplan said, calling it “worse than TikTok”.
Last June, the Financial Review reported on an analysis by Canberra-based cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, which showed that data, including GPS and device information from the WeChat app, went to servers in Hong Kong. In 2020, Hong Kong was subject to sweeping new national security laws imposed by China.
The Department of Finance is responsible for approving spending on government advertising campaigns.
Although the department has approved the use of TikTok, no trials have gone ahead.
“At present, the platform may be trialled for campaigns where deemed suitable,” the department said. “To date, non-corporate entities have not used TikTok for government advertising.”
A spokeswoman for Ms Gallagher confirmed that the letter from Senator Paterson had been received on Friday morning and said the correspondence would be considered in due course.
A TikTok spokeswoman said: “Calls by the Shadow Minister to ban government advertisers on the platform are ridiculous.
“A wide range of brands, businesses and not-fo- profits find great success using TikTok to connect with our millions of users.
“We have also previously run extremely successful campaigns with the government including Health Departments regarding COVID-19 and the Australian Electoral Commission around elections.”
Western governments are concerned about TikTok and political interference from China via the platform. TikTok denies any links to the Chinese Communist Party and says it would never cooperate with China’s government.
Of particular concern are China’s intelligence laws, which compel companies and citizens to cooperate with the government.
Earlier in April, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus issued a directive banning TikTok on government-issued devices based on advice from intelligence and security agencies. However, the directive included caveats for legitimate business reasons to have the app, including: “where an entity must use the application to reach key audiences to undertake marketing or public relations activity on behalf of the entity”.
Mr Paterson wrote to Ms Gallagher saying he recognised the directive permitted the use of TikTok for legitimate business reasons, but said allowing the government to advertise on the platform created “unnecessary risk and is fundamentally inconsistent with Australian government’s broader position given what we know about the risk inherent with the use of the application”.
“The ... direction notes that TikTok poses significant security and privacy risks due to the application’s extensive collection of user data and TikTok’s exposure to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law. TikTok has previously admitted that Australians’ user data can be accessed in China.“
