In October 2020 I wrote a piece discussing the Trump Administration’s attempt to ban TikTok. At the time the discussion was around banning the service outright, but at the end I add a note that there was an attempt by the Administration to force a sale of the service to U.S.-based company, Oracle.
Re-reading the piece my argument was two-fold:
Is TikTok really that bad if other companies like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit can also collect our data?
What could China do with that data if collected?
I left the piece reasonably open-ended, but gun to my head I thought the government interfering with private enterprise, even of a foreign-owned enterprise, was not the right move. My view has changed. I believe that the U.S. Senate (the House already passed the bill) should pass the proposal requiring ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) to sell their U.S. operations. There are two key reasons for this.
Data Collection vs. Propaganda
In my original piece on this topic, I spent most of my time evaluating the data collection side of the question. At the time it was recent news that Facebook had been selling data and it appeared that the debate over online privacy was going to come down to ownership, the ability to own the data that the big technology companies found so valuable. I’m not sure what changed — but that consideration fell out of vogue. If nothing else had changed this might have allayed my fears about TikTok. Hell, the Biden Administration negotiated a deal with TikTok to move all U.S. user data to American soil (Project Texas). This plan has been under review for over a year now and negotiations have reached an impasse.
But let’s be generous with the Chinese (what could go wrong) and assume they will move U.S. user data to American soil thereby quelling fears of foreign ownership of the data. That does not address my new concern, that the Chinese Communist Party has its thumb on the scale and is actively influencing what viewers see.
My new concern, that the Chinese Communist Party has its thumb on the scale and is actively influencing what viewers see.
TikTok sent the below push notification two weeks ago to all of its users prompting a rapid response to their Representatives demanding “No” vote on the legislation. Now I’m a fan of democracy, but this exercise in civic engagement resulted in some weird and radical quotes, for example from Michigan Representative John James:
teenagers call[ing] their legislators this week saying they would kill themselves, yes, literally commit suicide if Congress made ByteDance sell TikTok
Coming from an app where users opt to say “unalive” versus killing or suicide this is remarkably extreme. This is one story, and one anecdote does not a case make; but the power of the application and its owners has been demonstrated. ByteDance proved that they can drive thousands of people to support a cause based solely on the information they provide. As a reminder, Congress was not passing legislation to shutdown TikTok, rather force a sale to a U.S. entity — the app would still exist if ByteDance was driven by profits1. The sale of TikTok is akin to a hypothetical bankruptcy of (let’s pick a company at random) United Airlines. if United went bankrupt the planes would not suddenly fall out of the sky. All of your booked tickets would not suddenly be voided. The Company would continue to operate, and the employees would largely stay the same, it’s just the ownership and Board of Directors who are really being impacted here2.
And yet — the idea of banning is pervasive. From trends on Twitter X where users share videos highlighting why TikTok shouldn’t be banned to the opinion page of the New York Times where investigative journalists claim the bill’s intent is to ban the service. It is all insane, people are seemingly opting to ignore the facts on the ground and arguing with strawmen rather than engaging with the facts of the case. For example, here’s New York Times’ investigative journalist Julia Angwin intentionally (or maybe not, maybe it was intentionally) — contradicting herself in a piece titled “Why Are Lawmakers Trying to Ban TikTok Instead of Doing What Voters Actually Want?” (emphasis mine):
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, and American lawmakers say they are pursuing a ban in the name of protecting U.S. data from the Chinese government. But lawmakers are not pursuing comprehensive federal privacy legislation that would protect Americans’ data on all the apps they use.
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But the tricky thing is that forcing TikTok to sell would not solve the problems that lawmakers claim they are trying to address. Selling TikTok to a big tech company such as Google, Meta or Microsoft — after all, who else could afford its estimated price of $84 billion? — would not make U.S. users’ data more secure.
The author here argues that this bill is bad because it doesn’t attempt to overhaul existing data protection rights, and then claims that the bill doesn’t address their primary concern of existing data security. This misrepresents the purpose of the bill, the reason for the urgency and near unanimity here (the bill passed 352-65, a margin of victory usually reserved for renaming post offices or agreeing to call it soccer) — it’s not security at large which is at stake here, it is specifically “foreign adversary-controlled applications” a point outlined explicitly in the language of the bill. And no matter how much you disdain Google, Meta, or Microsoft — they’re all U.S. owned.
But Duncan, you’ve gone lost the plot — how is TikTok acting as a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party? Isn’t their CEO Singaporean, and claims that they’ve (1) never shared U.S. user data and (2) wouldn’t comply if asked?
You’re right — and in case you forgot the CEO of Barstool Sports was a woman for many years when they never-the-less published media which was hurtful to women and other marginalized communities. Testimony from the Company’s CEO does not convince me that the CCP does not have their thumb on the scale.
Researchers at Rutgers University (yuk) conducted research which compared TikTok’s trending topics vis-a-vis other social media websites (primarily Instagram). Their conclusion was that “While ratios for non-sensitive topics (e.g., general political and pop-culture) generally followed user ratios (~2:1), ratios for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government were much higher (>10:1).” What were considered “sensitive” topics? Should that concern us?
The figure below expresses the amount of TikTok to Instagram posts, a lower percentage highlighting topics which are more present on Instagram versus TikTok.
The report is highly damning and does its best to give TikTok the benefit of the doubt; but when you dig in it’s clear that there’s something going on:
For general topics like pop culture or benign political topics (e.g. “Liberal”, “Democrat”, “MakeAmericaGreatAgain”, “ProLife”) the ratios were 2 — 2.5x. I would love for more research to be done on this topic, but I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect that the Chinese government, and entity famous for its censorship to engage in this kind of influence. While research is always helpful it is not necessary. There are leaked internal memos acknowledging this very thing. Occam’s Razor would lead me to conclude that yes, the CCP is putting its thumb on the scale and that matters.
For those that would argue that data is data and all parties who collect it are equal are acting form a place of ignorance or actively rooting for the CCP. Maybe Donald Trump is right that there is in fact a mind virus afoot in this country. ByteDance has proven themselves as competent influencers and to ignore their abilities to influence the American public is to cede ground in the ongoing information war.
Yes, China is Bad
Your take-away from the prior section might have been, “So what — Meta, X, Google, etc… already influence me. Why is TikTok different?” the answer is China. They’re actively working to silence their own critics at home and abroad — they steal American data and manipulate global currency and commodity markets to maintain their own stability at the determent of others. Possibly more importantly, they are the primary global foe of the U.S. and democracy at large.
When Edward Luce wrote The Retreat of Western Liberalism in 2017 it was a not-so-subtle commentary on the election of Donald Trump, but it contained commentary beyond that and positioned the western tradition of democracy at odds with the Chinese-model.
The emergence of China is the most dramatic event in economic history. We are living in an age of convergence no less dramatic than the age of divergence brought about by European colonialism and the Industrial Revolution.
China’s economic success has proven to be one of the most consequential events since WWII and now offers the developing world, and the non-U.S. aligned powers an ally and blueprint if they choose to follow an illiberal path.
Since Richard Nixon opened trade with China, there has been a belief among the Washington establishment that a policy of open exchange would expand beyond goods. The United States would receive cheap products, China would experience industrialization and U.S. culture. Big Macs and Star Wars in exchange for an escape from abject poverty? Seems like a sick trade. And yet, since 2000 we have seen time and time again the regimes of Hu Jiantao and Xi Jinping leverage their massive population and economic potential to corrupt American corporations and institutions. If you remember my post on Woke Inc. by Vivek Ramaswami, you’re a devout reader, and you might remember that I wasn’t very complementary of his work. But I did agree that corporations have sold out their values to increase profits. This is very clear in their development, production, and sale of the Mulan film. It’s even more clear if you watch the Imagineers documentary and listen to then CEO Bob Iger illustrate how he views the Disney-Chinese partnership.
Another example could be seen when then-Houston Rockets General Manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted in support of Hong Kong protests. As a brief reminder,
For over 20 weeks, millions of people in Hong Kong have taken to the streets for increasingly violent protests. Initially, protests centered around a proposed bill that would have allowed for the extradition of Hong Kong residents to China to face trial. Now, demonstrations have ballooned into a fight against police brutality and Chinese encroachment on the semi-autonomous city.
In direct retribution for this lack of subserviency, The Chinese Basketball Association said it would suspend all cooperation with the team. China’s consulate general in Houston also urged the team to “clarify and immediately correct the mistakes.” Since when has China got to tell us how to hoop? The NBA proceeded to sacrifice any sense of moral superiority accented with the league’s biggest star supporting the CCP’s line:
LEBRON JAMES: Yes. We all do have freedom of speech. But at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you're not thinking about others and you're thinking about yourself. So many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet.
These are just the highest of high-profile examples. I’m sure a Google search would yield more, but I believe that the evidence is such that it’s not unreasonable to believe given the opportunity the Chinese government will influence both American consumers and companies to accomplish their goals…and for the worse.
I think at this point we should also address the elephant in the room and that is the fact that we live in an era which seems on the precipice of great conflict. We have Russia fighting Ukraine and while there are no U.S.-boots on the ground, which is good, battle lines are being drawn. There is a clear-cut alliance of anti-US powers supporting Russia in Ukraine, primarily China. It is no secret why.
The CCP has a direct interest in learning the extent to which The West will support non-allied territories, and given an extensive conflict, an incentive to weaken any future efforts. Read: Tiawan.
China and the growing group of nations committed to undermining The West represent a different philosophy on government the economy and human rights. I know it can be hard to admit, but in the long arc of history the United States are the good guys here. We’re not perfect, but pretty damn good.
You may still believe that “Duncan, aren’t we ceding our moral stance against suppression by enacting this sale/ban?” To that I concede that I had the same thought, but Matt Yglesias provides a compelling analogy:
It’s 1975 and a state-owned Soviet firm wants to buy CBS. What happens? Well, what happens is they wouldn’t be allowed to. The FCC would block it. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US or its predecessors would block it. If they didn’t have the power, congress would write a new law. And even if it wasn’t CBS, if it was a chain of local TV affiliate stations, the outcome would be the same.
I agree that we should not import Chinese values by banning their apps, but we have to acknowledge that illiberal opponents will take advantage of our liberal and good-faith institutions to gain an upper hand. I think there is a reason that this vote was so heavily favored toward the recommended sale and potential banning of the app and that is because the people in power understand the threat that a China with immense control over US public opinion holds.
This doesn’t even get into the Trump flip-flop or fact that we have no idea what is actually going to happen here. This is unprecedented. The only thing we can know for sure are our own principles.
Further Reading and Analysis:
Open To Debate (from February 2023)
We’ll get to this point later; but essentially why would a Company throw away billions of dollars just to prove a point? Could it possibly —
MASSIVE oversimplification, but it’s largely true.