Called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the Bill’s wording is specifically focused on TikTok and ByteDance. It makes no reference to China, only to “foreign adversaries”.
Not a ban, but a choice
A clever piece of legislation, it doesn’t call for a ban on TikTok. That was the subject of an executive order in 2020 by former US president Donald Trump. But it got bogged down in the courts, partly because it did not have the backing of the US Congress. This time it does have partial backing so far, and if also passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden – who has said he would sign it – the Act would give ByteDance the option to sell TikTok to an acceptable party within six months.
If it fails to do so, the app will no longer be able to operate in the US. In other words, rather than proposing a ban, the legislation sends the ball into ByteDance’s court, forcing it to choose between “sell out” and “get out”.
Judging from statements by those who supported the Bill, the main problem that the US government has with TikTok is that it is Chinese-owned and therefore subject to influence by the Chinese government.
TikTok’s protestations that the government does not have control over it or its parent company, are not credible. If that were the case, the Chinese government would not say, as it did, that it will not permit the forced sale of TikTok in the US, which it considers to be an act of theft.
What also defies belief is the claim by TikTok that it would not share data with the Chinese government, if asked. It would be required to do so by law and would have no choice. Nor has TikTok’s pledge to maintain its US user data within the US allayed concerns that such data could still be accessed from China.
So, it would seem that the US may have legitimate security concerns by its own definition of that idea – although based on the hypothetical premise that the Chinese government would indeed use TikTok to compromise US national security. This, too, is possible, although there is no evidence that Beijing has done this so far.
From what we know, the content on TikTok has been largely confined to goofy videos and edutainment, although it has also been a conduit for misinformation.
Ownership is not the problem
But foreign ownership – whether by adversaries or not – has not really been the problem when it comes to disseminating content that can undermine national security. US-owned apps such as Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) can also be used for such nefarious purposes.
Facebook has already been weaponised. Russian cyber hackers were able to manipulate its algorithm in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election to target voters with misinformation. Around the same time, a shady data company called Cambridge Analytica harvested Facebook data on the psychological profiles of some 87 million American voters, which it then sold to unknown parties, which could have been US adversaries.
Under the leadership of Mr Elon Musk, the short-messaging platform X has all but dispensed of its moderators, which opens it to all manner of toxic content.
The point here is that even if the Chinese government intends to undermine US security through some form of digital sorcery, it doesn’t need TikTok to do this. US-owned platforms would work just as well, if not better, given their wider collective reach, and there are third-party data brokers who can help.
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Purchase difficulties
Then there are some difficult issues around the purchase of TikTok, assuming it can be sold. Potential contenders to buy the app, which is estimated to be valued at more than US$100 billion (S$134 billion), include deep-pocketed tech giants that already have platforms of their own, such as Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Google (which owns YouTube) and X. But whether US anti-trust authorities would, or should, permit any of these companies to add TikTok’s 170 million US users to their already vast customer base would be in doubt.
Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is reportedly assembling a group that includes investors from the Middle East, to bid for TikTok. Given his previous affiliation with the Trump administration, lack of experience in running a social media platform and the Middle-Eastern connection, his consortium might also be viewed with suspicion, at least by a large proportion of TikTok users.
Another possible difficulty centres on what exactly is up for sale. Some observers have speculated that if the Chinese government gives the green light for a sale, ByteDance would not permit TikTok’s unique algorithm to be included in the purchase. In that event, buyers might be less interested because TikTok’s algorithm is its biggest asset.
If the Bill becomes law and if it is implemented – although this would face legal challenges, including from US civil rights groups – it seems more likely than not that the sale of TikTok, at least in its present form, will not happen, in which case TikTok would be blocked from app stores and effectively banned in the US.
That would suit the incumbent US social media companies just fine. When India banned TikTok in 2020 after its border clashes with China, a high proportion of the app’s 200 million-odd users in India gravitated to US-owned platforms such as Instagram, which had created its own 15-second video service similar to TikTok, and YouTube. Something similar could happen in the US.
Would US national security thereby be enhanced? That is doubtful. US-owned apps can continue to be abused by hackers and other bad actors from anywhere.
The bigger prize
What is really needed is not a change of ownership of TikTok, but a national data protection law and privacy act in the US that protects consumers against the abuse of their data and applies to all social media platforms, domestic and foreign.
So far, this has been stalled, with US platforms pushing back against the idea. Meta’s boss Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, claimed that limiting the power and reach of the likes of Facebook would enable the rise of Chinese rivals that “do not share the values that we have”.
If TikTok leaves the US, or is bought by a US company, this rationale for stalling a comprehensive data protection law would no longer hold.
Holding US social media platforms to higher standards by implementing such a law would benefit not only their US consumers, but maybe even those around the world. If anything good comes out of the TikTok saga, that would be it.
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