TikTok Required Sale or Ban Is a Reflection of Fear and Bad Policy

February 19, 2025

 

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Washington's politicians received a late, but expected, holiday gift from the US Supreme Court, which recently found constitutional a law forcing ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to either sell the app to an American group or face a ban. In its ruling, the Court's majority upheld a federal law built upon the premise that TikTok posed a significant national security risk to the United States. The ruling was not a surprise, but the fact that it was unanimous reinforced how convinced the entire Washington establishment is that anything relating to China today faces intense scrutiny in the United States.

 

Forget that Donald Trump has reportedly considered how he might "save" TikTok; the real issue is not what he might do and whether it might work. Instead, the important issue to remember is that fear and bad policy have been on display for months inside the US when it comes to TikTok.

 

The data tells part of the story in attempting to explain why Washington's political elites sought to undermine TikTok in the United States.¹ Fear tells another part.

 

Set aside for a moment that more than one billion people across the globe are active each month on TikTok. Instead, remember that an estimated 170 million Americans, basically 50 percent of the entire US population,² use the social media app, and those Americans spend close to an hour each day on it (in the US, only Facebook and Instagram are more popular platforms³). To suggest that TikTok has been an influential part of American culture, entertainment, information, and business is not an understatement. Likewise, Americans matter to TikTok. As the data at the beginning of this paragraph affirms, US citizens make up roughly 17% of the platform's global audience.

 

It is not an understatement to say that US politicians have made clear for roughly the past four years that they are not enamored with TikTok. However, almost two dozen such political figures, including former President Joe Biden, who have sought to ban the app, also have TikTok accounts.⁴ This led one Californian attorney and former Democratic congressional candidate to recently decry the "hypocrisy" resulting from politicians claiming the app should be considered such a threat to the nation while engaging with audiences on it.

 

As the legal machinations played out over the past few months, ByteDance remained steadfast in saying it would not sell to an American group. Should that stance not change, it would mean TikTok might be willing to risk roughly 17% of its user base to maintain ownership. Thus, whatever happens in the coming weeks will have a significant effect on TikTok's bottom line. The platform generated 9.4 billion USD in revenue solely because of the US market in 2022.⁵ According to TikTok, the app contributed 24 billion USD to the US economy in 2023.⁶

 

As mentioned, data is a large part of the discussion about TikTok in the United States. The other part is fear. How did the US government, representing the nation that trumpets its belief in freedom of speech, not to mention its exceptionalism, reach the point of advocating that a social media app be banned?

 

The reach and influence of TikTok on American audiences frightens national politicians. One of them is Marco Rubio, the Republican US senator from Florida, whom Trump has identified as his Secretary of State. Rubio and others believe the app's algorithms and content sharing can be manipulated so that TikTok might spread pro-China propaganda,⁷ which, these politicians claim, might influence its users to admire, like, or seek affinity with China. In December 2024, an appeals court found no evidence that any of that is possible.⁸ Unfortunately, that same court refused to throw out a lower-court ruling that declared the ban legal.

 

Former US President Biden and members of US Congress are also convinced the Chinese government can compel TikTok to share the data it has on its American audiences. TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew has said that demand has never been made,⁹ and he also told US Congress that TikTok's parent company is not "an agent of China." In a 2024 interview with WIRED magazine, Chew admitted that TikTok has a "bigger trust deficit than most other companies," but he remained optimistic that "over time the trust will come."¹⁰ Whether Chew believes this or was engaging in PR is not important; what is relevant is that he has not shied away from discussing TikTok's operating procedures and commitment to privacy with any American politician. His message has not changed minds in the US capital, including those of the Supreme Court justices who accepted the government's arguments about dangers to national security.

 

Fear about China pervades the US national conversation. On a daily basis, Americans hear their politicians accuse China of nefarious behavior. The political class, operating in its powerful echo chamber, insists that Chinese-created products - whether they be social media apps, electric vehicles, photovoltaic cells, smartphones, or something else - can cause harm to the American public. Specifically relating to TikTok, there has been some pushback to this narrative in the media, with one editorial after another warning that a ban opens a host of legal issues.¹¹ These words have not altered American public opinion,¹² which remains strongly in favor of cutting TikTok from the US market.

 

There is a larger issue at play here: technological sovereignty. At risk of oversimplification, the core question relating to this concept is whether countries should have the right to align technology to their specific legal, cultural, and sociological frameworks. One group of scholars has wisely noted one of the challenges with arguing for technological sovereignty: "The precise interpretations, subjects, meanings, and definitions of sovereignty can significantly differ."¹³ Two other scholars, examining technological sovereignty in the European Union, have identified one effect of the absence of a unified definition.¹⁴ They suggest the EU has adopted a "regulatory mercantilist" attitude, as "it seeks to reassert its control over cyberspace, impose digital borders, accumulate data wealth, and reduce its dependence on external private sector actors whose values may not reflect those of the EU order." The same statement can be made of the United States, which is abandoning its long-held public position of openness in favor of criticizing China.

 

Edward Snowden's revelations that the US government and its National Security Agency (NSA) spied on multiple foreign governments have significantly contributed to the conversation about technological sovereignty. As one example, the German government, upon learning that the US had tapped the cellphone of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and used its embassy in Berlin to monitor events in Germany,¹⁵ sought to enhance the privacy of German citizens. The Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) examined what Germany was planning and found significant flaws.¹⁶ The GPPi report, released in 2014, determined that "many of the proposals do not effectively protect against foreign surveillance." Moreover, "some of them, especially technical proposals forcing localized data storage or routing, are likely to negatively affect a free and open Internet." Expanding the focus to include Europe, the GPPi added something that was quite prescient: "Actively promoting proposals for greater control within Europe will limit Europe's ability to present itself as a global advocate of a free and open Internet. Without greater nuance, other governments could use the proposals to justify their own actions, including those that do not protect, but violate, human rights."

 

Other governments could use the proposals to justify their own actions. Although the US cannot suggest that TikTok or China might do what the NSA did, it has made the case that protections need to be put in place that are relevant only to the US market.

 

Critics are lining up to suggest Washington's strategy will not work.

 

In a study released in early 2024, three scholars suggested that the US (along with Australia and the United Kingdom) resorted to "scare campaigns, moral panics, xenophobic overtones, and knee-jerk political reactions" to justify banning TikTok.¹⁷ The authors added that the US is "more prone" than its allies to "attack" specific platforms, including TikTok, based on "national security concerns and threatened national economic interests." They warned that until a true global approach to aligning regulations is undertaken, there will be no coherent linkage between privacy and regulation.

 

A second scholar has noted that seeking to limit TikTok is challenging because "the global digital ecosystem is deeply interwoven, with technology companies, supply chains, and innovation hubs spanning the entire world."¹⁸ Recognizing that deep interconnectivity, "actions like banning TikTok will almost certainly disrupt economic activities and reshape market dynamics." Even the most basic analysis of the US-China bilateral relationship finds that each side is dependent upon the other to sustain their domestic economies. Thus, US leaders would be wise to carefully consider the domino effect that could follow closing the metaphorical door on TikTok.

 

There is another point that pierces the Washington bubble in an especially harsh way: One critic has argued that the social media platforms created in the US "to varying degrees … spread and amplify misinformation and hate speech … generate and exploit data at the expense of user privacy … embed unfair and harmful biases into their algorithms and technical infrastructure … fail to ensure the security of user data … and … offer limited mechanisms for transparency and accountability."¹⁹ Of course, even though these are the bullets fired at TikTok, Washington ignores the same realities with Facebook, Instagram, X, and other domestically owned apps. With Meta abandoning its fact-checking of political claims and X becoming closely aligned with the new administration, no one should anticipate federal scrutiny of those apps and their activities.

 

Meanwhile, the sclerotic and fractured nature of its domestic politics ensures the US cannot - or perhaps it is better to suggest will not - envision China as a true partner in any efforts to create a global policy on technological sovereignty. The absence of trust is cavernous.

 

On top of this, the US Congress, and the body politic, remain divided. Yes, Republicans will have control of the White House, Senate, and Congress in 2025. However, the majorities are slim: Republicans have a 220-215 advantage in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate. Yet questions remain about how unified Republicans are. In late December, a public squabble ensued as Congress sought to avoid a government shutdown: Republicans argued over whether to support then President-elect Trump's call for suspension of the debt ceiling. While this might seem like an esoteric issue to casual political observers, the difference of opinion among Republicans pointed out that the national debt weighs heavily on some more than others. With Trump expecting the GOP-led House and Senate to follow his lead and support his policies, the reality is there are cleavages within the party. If they are unable to coalesce around questions relating to the country's debt ceiling, then how can anyone expect the Trump administration and Republicans to create legislation that will not only satisfy their own blocs, but also bring in Democrats?

 

 

1. "TikTok Statistics You Need to Know," Backlinko, accessed January 20, 2025, https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users.

2. "US and World Population Clock," US Census Bureau, accessed January 20, 2025, https://www.census.gov/popclock/.
3. "US Social Media Statistics 2025," The Global Statistics, accessed January 20, 2025, https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/united-states-social-media-statistics/.
4. Kat Tenbarge, "These Politicians Supported a TikTok Ban, but Still Used the App to Win Their Elections," NBC News, November 29, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-ban-trump-video-account-donald-election-rcna168693.

5. Monique Solomons, "95 TikTok Statistics: Users, Revenue, and Spending," Linearity, December 13, 2023, https://www.linearity.io/blog/tiktok-statistics/.

6. "Oxford Economics Reports: SMB's Use of TikTok Contributed 24.2 Billion USD to US Economy in 2023," TikTok, April 8, 2024, https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-economic-impact-report-2024-smb.

7. "Opinion: The Dangers in Leaving TikTok at Beijing's Disposal," CNN, March 14, 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/14/opinions/tiktok-congress-ban-china-ghitis/index.html.

8. Kenneth Niemeyer, "The US Provided No Evidence That China Manipulates TikTok Content Inside the Country, Court Says," Business Insider, December 8, 2024, https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-ban-china-propaganda-content-court-ruling-2024-12?op=1.

9. David Shepardson, "TikTok CEO: App Has Never Shared US Data with Chinese Government," Reuters, March 22, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-ceo-app-has-never-shared-us-data-with-chinese-goverment-2023-03-22/.

10. Shou Zi Chew, "Over Time the Trust Will Come," interview by Dexter Thomas, February 1, 2024, https://www.wired.com/story/shou-zi-chew-tik-tok-big-interview/.

11. New York Daily News Editorial Board, "TikTok Ban Won't Solve the Problem: Social Media Needs Regulation, Not One Company Ban," New York Daily News, December 9, 2024, https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/12/09/tiktok-ban-wont-solve-the-problem-social-media-needs-regulation-not-one-company-ban/; Erwin Chemerinsky, "Opinion: The TikTok Court Case Has Staggering Implications," Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2024, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-12-09/tiktok-court-free-speech-first-amendment.

12. Laura Silver and Laura Clancy, "By More than Two-to-One, Americans Support US Government Banning TikTok," Pew Research Center, March 31, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/31/by-a-more-than-two-to-one-margin-americans-support-us-government-banning-tiktok/.

13. Stephane Couture and Sophie Toupin, "What Does the Notion of 'Sovereignty' Mean When Referring to the Digital?," New Media & Society 21, no. 10 (August 12, 2019): 2305-22, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819865984.

14. Benjamin Farrand and Helena Carrapico, "Digital Sovereignty and Taking Back Control: From Regulatory Capitalism to Regulatory Mercantilism in EU Cybersecurity," European Security 31, no. 3 (September 9, 2022): 435-53, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2022.2102896.

15. "The NSA's Secret Spy Hub in Berlin," Der Spiegel, October 27, 2013, https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-nsa-spied-on-merkel-cell-phone-from-berlin-embassy-a-930205.html.

16. Mirko Hohmann, Robert Morgus, and Isabel Skierka, "Technological Sovereignty: Missing the Point?," GPPi, November 24, 2014, https://gppi.net/2014/11/24/technological-sovereignty-missing-the-point.

17. Ausma Bernot, Diarmuid Cooney-O'Donoghue, and Monique Mann, "Governing Chinese Technologies: TikTok, Foreign Interference, and Technological Sovereignty," Internet Policy Review 13, no. 1 (February 27, 2024), https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/governing-chinese-technologies.

18. Emerson Johnston, "From App to Allegory: The TikTok Ban as a Symbol of Deeper Geopolitical Tensions," The Stanford International Policy Review, September 12, 2024, https://fsi.stanford.edu/sipr/tik-tok-geopolitical-tensions.

19. Joanne E. Gray, "The Geopolitics of 'Platforms': The TikTok Challenge," Internet Policy Review 10, no. 2 (May 11, 2021), https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/geopolitics-platforms-tiktok-challenge.

 

 

This article is from the January issue of TI Observer (TIO), which delves into the concept of "technological sovereignty," examining the political dynamics behind the TikTok sale-or-ban law, and exploring the delicate balance between national security, enterprise freedom, and global technological cooperation. If you are interested in knowing more about the January issue, please click here:

http://en.taiheinstitute.org/UpLoadFile/files/2025/1/26/1041397474f018444-a.pdf

 

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