A popular app enjoyed by 170 million or more Americans went ‘dark’ on Sunday after the Chinese-owned TikTok was banned in the USA as a perceived threat to national security.
I am not a user. My interest is as a ‘China-watcher’ worried about the deteriorating relationship between the world’s two superpowers. I was however surprised to see that there was no outburst of rejoicing from the legion of China ‘hawks’ that this evil weapon of the genocidal Communists had been so effectively shot down (and shut down). Indeed, the originator of the ban (President-elect Trump) and its dutiful implementor (President Biden) seemed to be doing their best to save it. Very confusing.
The origin of the ban was in 2020 when President Trump was campaigning for re-election. One of his rallies was embarrassingly badly attended after college students operated a social media prank on TikTok persuading people not to go. Trump was furious and threatened to have TikTok banned. His political supporters scurried to help and quickly latched onto the fact that TikTok had a Chinese corporate owner (Bytedance), albeit headquartered in Singapore.
In the feverish, hostile bipartisanship which surrounds anything Chinese, it wasn’t difficult to mobilise Congressional support for a ban on national security grounds. Congressional hearings produced no evidence that TikTok’s Chinese owners had ever tried to share sensitive information with Chinese authorities, engage in espionage or do anything more than make a lot of money for shareholders by providing original but harmless entertainment. But they might, it was argued.
One argument was that, like other social media companies, TikTok collected a lot of data on its users. It seems unlikely that Chinese spooks have been scrolling through hundreds of millions of accounts and endless jingles and silly videos when there are more efficient ways of spying; or that TikTok would risk compromising its business reputation and its profitability by permitting data leakages to China. In any event TikTok was willing to allow American oversight of its data storage. But that wasn’t enough.
A more serious concern was that TikTok’s algorithm might be designed to exert political influence by manipulation and disinformation. We do know that US social media companies are not averse to a bit of disinformation (and Mr. Zuckerberg has just removed the content moderators who stop it). Hypothetically, TikTok could do the same. Brett Kavanagh, Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, observed however that “one man’s content manipulation is another’s editorial discretion”.
In any event no convincing case has been made that TikTok has been manipulating opinion through its algorithms. If the US authorities, and Trump in particular, were seriously worried about disinformation they could demand access to the algorithms of all social media companies (as the European Commission is seeking to do) but that would be furiously resisted by the ‘tech bros’, with or without TikTok.
Some in Congress, like the Republican Rand Paul, worried that by sacrificing free speech because of nebulous and unsubstantiated fears about national security, the USA was putting itself on the same level as China which censors information which the regime considers threatening (I know since my book, The Chinese Conundrum, has fallen foul of Chinese censorship and cannot be published there). Others in Congress worried that to shut down TikTok would simply hand its business on a plate to its rivals – Zuckerberg’s Meta in particular – and that the action would merely strengthen oligarchy in the USA.
Despite the reservations, the ban was approved by Congress. TikTok could remain only if its US operations were sold to an American buyer. But TikTok had no interest in selling under duress. Hence the shutdown, despite futile last-minute appeals to the Supreme Court to over-ride an Act passed by Congress.
A serious drama has now become a farce, as newly elected Donald Trump tries to reverse the process he initiated by lifting the ban. He appears to have been persuaded by his donors who had investments in ByteDance that the ban was undesirable. He will also have been told by his security advisers that the national security threat is weak or even baseless. And he will have antagonised numerous TikTok’s users, mainly young people, and content creators for no good reason. He is being made to look a fool which is not a good look on the eve of inauguration. To add to the comic irony, American TikTok users are fleeing in their millions to another clever Chinese entertainment app, Red Note, which is much more directly under the control of the Chinese authorities.
Trump the dealmaker is suggesting a compromise: a 90 day pause leading to a sale of 60% of TikTok in the USA, rather than 100%. To get this over the line, Trump appears to have turned for help to President Xi Jinping. Xi could help dig Trump out of a hole by encouraging (or instructing) the Chinese owners to sell the US operations to an approved American buyer (Elon Musk’s name has been floated). But why would Xi oblige other than to put Trump in his debt? Perhaps as a peace offering to head off tariff warfare? That would not be a good start to a Presidency which rests heavily on the idea of Mr. Tough Guy hammering the Chinese from a position of strength.
For those of us who see humour in this drama, there is the added delight of knowing that the most trenchant advocate of extending the TikTok ban to Britain has been a certain Liz Truss. She and her Sino-phobic friends will warn us that there are Chinese spies lurking in every corner and under every bed as well as on the Internet. I trust that sense will prevail and that TikTok will remain on-line for its British users.
* Sir Vince Cable is the former MP for Twickenham and was leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 until 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
One Comment
Liz Truss? I seem to remember her “opening pork markets in Beijing” (from her infamous “cheese” speech). And Trump’s transactionalism means that he will kow-tow to China if doing so ever seems to be in his interest.