Honestly, it’s more likely that they want to ban it because it allows China to manipulate the narrative in the US in ways that only Facebook, etc were able to in years past.

I love it when free market capitalists get a taste of their own “let people vote with their wallets, regulation be damned” medicine. The young generations are being radicalized against the US’s propaganda system and there’s not a goddamned thing our piece of shit Patriot Act-signing, civil-rights-eroding propagandistic demagogues can do about it (short of an outright ban).

Like @Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world said, it's on government phones. The thinking goes that TikTok, which is a Chinese company, is exporting too much data from US government devices. In other words, the government is worried the Chinese are spying. Given the amount of data that the TikTok app actually collects, the fear is probably not unreasonable. All corporate-owned social media collects way too much data, but TikTok really is next level from what I've read.

Social media in general collects a lot of private information, so part of the reason is that bytedance as a whole company and their headquarters and owners is in China where they wouldn't be subjected to US laws and regulations. If Facebook moved over seas they would probably do the same to Facebook.