On a Fox News Sunday episode in 2022, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said TikTok is “one of the most massive surveillance programs ever, especially on America’s young people.”

Cotton’s remarks connect to a rise in anti-Asian political rhetoric. A 2020 study by Stop AAPI Hate found that “one in 10 tweets by politicians about Asian Americans included racist or stigmatizing language.” 

This trend of xenophobia was reinforced through Texas’ TikTok ban. 

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On Jan. 17, UT banned TikTok from the University’s Wi-Fi in compliance with a December directive from Gov. Greg Abbott that restricted the app from any government-issued electronic devices.

According to Abbott’s directive, “the director of the FBI recently warned that the Chinese government can control TikTok’s content algorithm, allowing it to perpetrate influence operations within the United States.”

Texas has chosen to target TikTok because of its country of origin, making the decision inherently xenophobic. 

This ban on TikTok was on the basis that it had an increasing amount of data they collect and can share. Although this is the case with many social media apps, the state has chosen to target a tech company from China, making the choice xenophobic. In echoing this ban, UT is forced to participate in the rising trend of xenophobia in the United States. 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a clear rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. In a national report, Stop AAPI Hate found that Chinese Americans have reported more hate incidents than all other ethnic groups. The rise in xenophobia against Chinese Americans is undeniable. 

“This (rise in xenophobia against Chinese individuals) is nothing new, it’s part of a much longer history of the U.S. approaching China as a major global competitor,” said Laurel Mei-Singh, assistant professor of Asian American Studies and geography.

Through pieces of legislation like the 1875 Page Act, which barred undesirable immigrants, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, which restricted Chinese individuals from immigrating to the United States, the link between xenophobia and U.S. policy is undeniable. The TikTok ban is yet another example of this historical connection. 

Although Gov. Abbott was not available for comment, he said in his December directive, “the preservation of the safety and security of Texas is critically important. The threat of the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate the United States continues to grow on multiple fronts.”

This language surrounding the idea of a present and dangerous threat to American safety commonly centers around China and the Chinese government. 

“The United States in particular has always organized itself around threats. They’re basically using China as almost a scapegoat for the ills within this country … to distract the population from all of the government’s failures,” Mei-Singh said. “So the TikTok ban is just a way for … these politicians to act like they’re actually doing something to enhance the security of peace and well-being of people.”

UT’s TikTok ban perpetuates the xenophobia shown in state policy. 

Although the University declined to comment, UT said in a statement, “TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where and how they conduct internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government.” 

While Asian-American finance and economics sophomore Rana Duan said she understands the intention behind banning TikTok, she believes that the University should think about what companies they are excluding in the ban. 

“I would argue that if we were concerned about people’s data and privacy, and it was a surveillance concern, then why would we not be doing the same things for Facebook, Instagram and other apps that track similar data or use similar cookies?” Duan said.

In 2018, Facebook gave a Russian company, with ties to the Kremlin, access to Facebook user data — still the social media company did not face any U.S. government bans. Although Facebook’s connection with Russia was shown to have impacted the 2016 presidential election, no ban was made.

With this in mind, the policy feeds into anti-Asian rhetoric and negatively affects Asian-American students at UT.  

“​​It is definitely targeted towards Chinese people whether or not they directly say it,” economics freshman Melinda Wang said. “I think that the way that they worded it could have been a lot better and just to not create such racial tension.” 

The UT and state policy against TikTok emphasizes the potential threat that a Chinese company poses, when in reality all other social media companies collect data from their users and have the ability to share it with any government they choose. Choosing to target only one social media company because it originated in China is xenophobic. 

Muthukrishnan is a government and race, indigeneity and migration freshman from Los Gatos, California.