TikTok, the social media giant, owned by Chinese company ByteDance has polarized Americans’ views of the platform. It has also had a lasting effect on Congress, prompting questions such as “Are you associated with the CCP?” by members of Congress to the Singaporean CEO, Shou Zi Chew. A recent provision was enacted, forcing the Chinese company to either sell their product to an American interest or risk being pulled off American application stores by the 19th of January 2025.
Anti-Competitive? Or Protecting Americans?
TikTok’s downfall may mean the rise of domestic competition, like Meta’s Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat, and Elon Musk’s X (Twitter.) Some of these domestic interests have also been in hot water recently, but not over the protection of their server farms and users’ data. Instead, Congress grilled them over the alleged lack of safety measures on their platforms, causing harm to various marginalized groups including children.
This is what prompted the famous clip of Meta (then Facebook’s) CEO Mark Zuckerberg to turn around during a congress session and apologize to families of children who harmed themselves due to poor content moderation on their platforms.
The nature of TikTok’s congressional hearing was quite different, focusing primarily on accusations related to its Chinese ownership. The central question discussed was whether TikTok would provide user data to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) if requested. This concern is significant, given that China holds a 1% golden share in TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, which grants them a board seat and voting rights within the company.
Protecting Americans? Or American Interests?
American news platform Issue One reported in October of 2024 – that Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta spent over 18 million Dollars in their lobbying efforts – and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance spent nearly 10 million dollars in 2024 lobbying Congress. Both companies have spent significantly more this year than last.
The move to ban TikTok if it wasn’t sold was seen as controversial – especially from the progressive wing of the Democratic party – with critics like Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York – arguing that the motivations are based on “anti-Chinese sentiments,” that will do more harm than good on a diplomatic stage.
The Security Threats that it poses
Leaving aside the harmful content like Self Harm, Suicide Ideation, and eating disorders that are pushed to young users across all social media – Congresspeople like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia expressed security concerns, They believe that American users’ data has been compromised since they have been stored in server farms in China – which could lead to exploitation and manipulate content to influence public opinion.
Let’s break this down – firstly, contrary to what some might have you believe, China is not in fact an unsafe place to store user’s data – at least not any more than the US. The United States boasts the unfortunate statistic of having the most data breaches worldwide over the past 2 decades, with Russia coming in. a close second and China following Russia. This immediately dispels any myths about American data being physically less secure due to being in China.
Secondly – manipulation of public opinion by gathering users’ data is as much an American habit as it is a Chinese one. Think of the 2016 Cambridge Analytica data Scandal – where more than 30 million Facebook users’ data was leaked/ sold to the British Political Research company, Cambridge Analytica. What was it used for? To create highly targeted and specific advertisements based on users’ political beliefs to win their votes.
All of this is considered – the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled Chinese government is no stranger to using Chinese users’ data gathered in secret against them. For instance, users’ data collected from platforms like Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter,) and WeChat (the Chinese Equivalent of WhatsApp,) led to severe surveillance, censorship, and a crackdown on activism – in both Hong Kong and the mainland.
The Privacy Policies & Data handling
When signing up to any social media platform, users famously scroll through what looks like an endless stream of contractual agreements only to click “accept,” and start using the platforms. Upon analysis of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok’s Privacy Policies, there are no major differences – all of them collect extensive data, nearly making an online profile of the user, claim not to sell the data to anyone, but have said that they will give the government access to users’ data if required by law.
Here’s where the water gets murky – none have specified which government. They could refer to the government of the country where their company is incorporated – the USA for Meta and X, and China for TikTok, or they could mean the governments of countries where their users are based – which could be just about any country with internet access.
In conclusion – there’s no real difference between what these companies claim to do and what they end up doing. The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS,) has repeatedly been under fire for tracking users’ data to “investigate,” and “identify threats,”, especially after the 2001 9/11 attacks.
The politics of the Ban/ and the future of TikTok
From as early as 2018 – American lawmakers were concerned that a Chinese product was gaining severe traction in the states. They feared the app’s influence on young users – of which TikTok has the most in the states. In 2020, then President Trump’s first administration issued an executive order to ban TikTok unless it was sold to an American company, a controversial move that was dismissed in a Supreme Court case.
Surprisingly in 2021, President Biden’s administration kept with the project and sought to investigate TikTok’s data handling practices and raised concerns about the CCP’s easy access to American Users’ data. Culminating in legislation forcing the sale of TikTok in the states or risk being banned across all application stores.
Conversely, however, in 2024 – President-Elect Trump completely reversed his position on the Ban on the Chinese social media giant. Some claim this is to prevent the growth of Facebook’s market share – the owner was famously nicknamed “Zuckerschmuck,” by the former and future president. Others – like conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon, and reports from MSNBC suggest that his flip-flopping on the situation can be attributed to Republican mega-donor and billionaire -Jeff Yass – who owns a multi-billion-dollar stake in TikTok.
The only question that persists is – will ByteDance sell?
In short – probably not. TikTok has over 750 million daily users in China, which is nearly double the population of the United States. Its revenue streams in China are also substantially larger in China, where all American social media is banned. ByteDance is probably as unlikely to sell TikTok to an American company as Meta is to sell its products to a Chinese company.
