Meta

• The president can extend the deadline by three months, and TikTok has indicated that it plans to challenge the law in court.
• If the law stands and the company fails to sell the app, TikTok will be blocked from any U.S. app store or web-hosting service.
• The main arguments against TikTok under ByteDance’s ownership include that it enables foreign influence of U.S. public opinion, promotes harmful behaviors among minors, and undermines Americans’ data privacy.
• However, none of these concerns are new or unique to TikTok among social media platforms.

Foreign influence and propaganda

• Lawmakers have expressed concern that the Chinese government could influence U.S. public opinion, and thereby politics, by exerting control over what content TikTok users see.
• Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) referred to TikTok’s role in challenging ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil drilling project in Alaska as a possible Chinese influence operation meant to undermine U.S. energy dominance.
• But U.S-based social media platforms have been and continue to be exploited by a range of foreign governments, including China, and their proxies who use them to attempt to influence U.S. public opinion.
• These influence campaigns create and maintain coordinated cross-platform networks.

Hazardous to minors

• Some lawmakers also caution that TikTok feeds children content linked to dangerous behaviors, like eating disorders and self-harm.
• However, all social media may pose these threats.
• Currently, 41 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits against Meta for the damage allegedly done to minors.

Data security and privacy

• Proponents of the TikTok sale-or-ban law also claim that the app constitutes an unacceptable threat to data privacy.
• Rep. Gallagher asserted that the Chinese government could use TikTok for espionage to “find Americans, exfiltrate data and track the location of journalists.” Yet, there is little reason to believe Americans’ data is safer with U.S.-based companies.
• Meta has had a wide range of data privacy scandals.
• Much of this data can be purchased, completely legally, from commercial data brokers, regardless of who owns it.

The need for regulation

• Each threat posed by TikTok has also been posed by U.S.-based social media for over a decade.
• I believe that lawmakers should take action to address harms caused by U.S. companies seeking profit as well as by foreign companies perpetrating espionage.
• To truly protect their constituents, lawmakers would need to enact broad, far-reaching regulation.

Sarah Florini currently receives research funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.