“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”

That’s how former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley launched her latest assault on Vivek Ramaswamy, this time over his stance on the Chinese-backed social media platform TikTok.

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Earlier this month, days after calling TikTok “digital fentanyl” pushed by Xi Jinping, Ramaswamy announced that he had joined the platform, claiming he had been persuaded to do so by YouTuber Jake Paul.

“This is infuriating because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have,” Haley said, before stating that “150 million people are on TikTok.

“That means they can get your contacts, they can get your financial information, they can get your emails, they can get your text messages, they can get all of these things,” she added. “China knows exactly what they’re doing.”

Now, there are two parts to this issue. The first is that, on the surface, Ramaswamy’s position isn’t as ridiculous as it’s being portrayed. The brutal fact is that TikTok is massively popular among U.S. teenagers, who use the platform more than Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or X/Twitter. For the conservative movement to make progress with younger generations, it may be necessary to reach younger Americans where they happen to be right now, which is (unfortunately) TikTok.

The second part, however, may counteract the first, because there are monumental concerns surrounding TikTok that set it apart from every other U.S.-based Big Tech giant.

When the subject of data collection or analysis or interference is raised regarding TikTok, there is often a response of, “So what?” Every social media company does this, you will be told, so what’s the big deal?

First, that’s simply not true.

While U.S.-based tech companies actively work to anonymize data and protect it from improper use, report after report has shown that TikTok, and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, can bypass these protections with ease, if any such protections exist at all. For example, according to TheWrap, TikTok is able to bypass Apple and Google’s data protection systems, making full access for Beijing-based ByteDance as easy as clicking a button.

The latest example of TikTok’s abuse of privacy was recently uncovered by Forbes, with reports indicating that any TikTok or ByteDance staff could access the contact lists of high-profile users and public figures.

But even if it were true that all Big Tech companies have access to precisely the same dataset and enforce the same levels of protection against misuse (which, again, they do not), does it not also matter who is using that data and why?

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After all, there’s a reason multiple government entities, both in the United States and abroad, are banning the use of TikTok on official devices. Don’t forget: Every Chinese-based company only exists with the express permission of the Chinese Communist Party. This means that ByteDance and, by extension, TikTok only exist because the CCP allows them to exist.

The CCP, which currently holds over a million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps, wants TikTok in the hands of our nation’s youth. Why? That’s the question we should be asking.

Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker and host of Off Limits. You can follow him on X at @ighaworth. You can also find him on Substack.