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It is a sign of our fungible times that an internet platform that hosts viral short-form videos of lip-syncing teenagers, gurgling babies and beauty tutorials can be deemed a national security threat.
But this week, TikTok urged a US federal appeals court to overturn a recent law, triggered by Washington’s security concerns, that would force the Chinese-owned company to sell its US offshoot or shut up shop in four months’ time.
The case is being closely watched around the world as governments increasingly look to police the internet. Is the US action reasonable or counterproductive?
TikTok has argued that a ban would have a “staggering” impact on its 170mn US users. “This law imposes extraordinary speech prohibition based on indeterminate future risks,” its lawyer told the hearing. The company has previously highlighted the ban’s potential harm to its 7mn business customers as well as countless wannabe influencers.
The US administration’s case, much of it classified, is that TikTok represents a threat to the US because the company might hand over personal data to Beijing or seek to influence political debate by promoting or censoring content. In previous congressional hearings, US officials have argued that China could “weaponise America’s data against us” pointing to TikTok as “Exhibit A”.
TikTok has fiercely contested the accusations and its Chinese parent company ByteDance has said it would not sell its US business or hand over its recommendation algorithms. In partnership with Oracle, TikTok has spent more than $2bn to ring fence its data in the US. It has also denied any political interference from Beijing. “We do not promote or remove any content on behalf of the Chinese government,” TikTok’s Singaporean chief executive Shou Zi Chew told Congress earlier this year.
Based on their initial remarks on Monday, the court’s judges appeared sceptical of TikTok’s arguments. Free-speech rights apply to individuals, not the platforms on which they express themselves. And governments can reasonably prioritise national security concerns over other interests.
There are certainly precedents for a ban. In 2020, the US forced the Chinese owner of Grindr, the popular gay dating app, to sell its US business because of blackmail fears. That same year India banned TikTok — and 58 other Chinese-owned apps — following border clashes between the two countries. At the time, India was TikTok’s largest market with 150mn users.
Yet the clash is rich in ironies. The Chinese-owned company has impressive gall in seeking to defend its business interests in the US by trumpeting free-speech rights — China blocks US social media services so the principle of reciprocity hardly applies. But it is no less striking how US politicians, who have widely denounced the app, have also been among its most enthusiastic users.
With 5.5mn TikTok followers, the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has used the platform to appeal to younger voters. The video of Harris saying “you think you just fell out of a coconut tree” has been endlessly remixed, becoming a TikTok meme.
The Republican candidate Donald Trump, with 11.2mn followers, while in office sought to ban the Chinese app but now vows to “save TikTok”. His purpose, it seems, is both to curry favour with the company’s users and stick it to its rival Facebook, which he has strongly criticised.
It is understandable why some politicians may now be treading warily. TikTok remains wildly popular among its users. The proportion of US adults supporting a ban on TikTok has fallen from 50 per cent in March to 32 per cent in August, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. The shuttering of TikTok might also rebound on US social media platforms operating abroad, making it hard for Washington to object to Brazil’s recent banning of Elon Musk’s X, for example.
Moreover, it seems a little absurd for US politicians to worry so much about TikTok’s possible misuse of personal data when so much is already tradable online. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the San Francisco-based digital rights organisation, has pointed out, Chinese entities could surreptitiously buy reams of personal data about US citizens from data brokers, just as scammers and criminals do.
The better solution, as the EFF has argued, would be to limit the personal data that any business, US or foreign, can harvest and sell about its users. A strong federal data privacy law protecting the rights of all users might be a more effective defence than banning TikTok.