As I write this, it’s January 17, and the fate of TikTok in the United States is very much uncertain. I generally avoid politics, but this case is an interesting case of several political feelings I have intersecting with technology, so I’m here writing about it.

Clearing The Air

I am a TikTok user, but I have no financial incentive to do so. Though invited, I never opted into payments directly to creators or selling in their marketplace. I also was not a large creator there (or anywhere), but I did have a few thousand followers and a few million views on videos.

All these thoughts are my own, and I obviously am not involved in any of the internal discussion so there will be some speculation. I’ll try to cite concrete sources for some arguments when needed.

Why I Liked TikTok

First, I want to highlight some of the positives of TikTok and why I chose to use the platform, despite my concerns with privacy.

TikTok had a feeling of being a small, tight-knit platform even for its size. You could easily find creators with few followers that overlap with your niche interests or creators showcasing incredible talent alongside large, massively popular accounts. The algorithm was very good at keeping things relevant, so content was usually well received. Other platforms are good at this too, but the short-form video content lends itself to great memes and quick blurbs of insight.

Speaking from outside my personal experience, you could see people enacting fantastic change. One account was a creator who traveled to homes and mowed their overgrown yards for free. Not only is it satisfying to watch the waist high grass get trimmed, but often he showcased stories of people genuinely on hard times. In a recent video, he raised over $500,000 for a person to improve mobility in their own home.

Obviously none of this isn’t without negatives, there are people stealing content, low effort creators that bring no value and just take up space, people spreading misinformation or being confidently incorrect, effects on mental health, but all platforms have those problems.

China Is An APT

The ban and politics around it are a lot more nuanced than the current political environment in the United States can reliably discuss. China, who does have an interest and some theoretical control over Bytedance and TikTok, is an Advanced Persistent Threat. They’ve demonstrated numerous times that they have little issue inserting themselves into US networks for various reasons, including a recent incident where Salt Typhoon, a group operated by the Chinese government, had a startling amount of infiltration multiple US telco networks¹.

It’s worth remembering that in the course of this discussion, but also a lot of points are either theoretical or classified. While classified doesn’t mean it’s untrue or false, it does require an implicit trust that a lot of folks have lost. Especially when none of the information (not even a little) is shared even when trying to defend things in court, it’s asking an for a lot.

The Ban Isn’t About The Data

The first point I’ll make is that this ban isn’t about the data of American’s needing protected. I’m 100% certain data is being collected by TikTok, but data is being collected in much the same way by US based social media companies.

On the surface, you might argue that things are different because the data isn’t collected by a foreign nation, but that doesn’t mean the data isn’t over there. Data collected is available from data brokers, and the US government was caught purchasing this data already². I think it’s foolish to think that others haven’t caught on to the fact that this data is easily available. And there are arguments that this data can even be de-anonymized³.

If the concern was really about data, the law would be made in such a way that the data from any source must be protected. Laws like GDPR already exist and are intended to traverse borders to protect citizens of the EU. A similar framework could be applied to US citizens data, but obviously this would have further reaching implications for domestic companies that seem to have a lot to gain by the ban.

On the note of security, quite a few US politicians are on the platform already. While most seemed to come and go just for the 2024 election, some used the platform as a fireside chat of sorts to communicate with the electorate. A lot of places, including the US, ban the app on government devices⁴, and this is a fair restriction.

The argument of data harvesting, though, doesn’t go away. The phones that are used for these are placed in the vicinity of these figures, collecting the same data that is alleged to be harvested on citizens. One would expect that if things were such a danger, posting on the application wouldn’t be allowed at all.

The Ban Isn’t About Security

Another argument I’ve heard often is that the app itself is a potential entry point for a future attack. It could flipped into a active piece of malware that’s installed on millions of devices.

Mobile operating systems, though, are quite good at isolating malicious apps. Not only do phones that aren’t rooted see the benefits of the walled garden app stores, where things can be removed or reviewed, but permissions on apps are quite granular.

Sure, things could go haywire, but that’s not a risk exclusive to TikTok. Supply chain attacks like Solar Winds demonstrate that even if an application is from a trusted source, there’s potential for malicious code to make it into apps. Thousands of applications have been affected by such attacks⁵. If we’re worried about apps going rouge on phones, there’s significant vectors of attack outside of a single, highly scrutinized application.

The Ban Isn’t About Influence

The fear that China will use the app to spread propaganda is also a common fear. While possible, foreign influence has been demonstrated in US owned platforms too⁶. The Internet Research Agency in particular has ties to anti-Ukraine posts recently and posts attempting to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election on domestic social media platforms.

Even just recently, domestic platforms have pledged to remove fact checkers⁷. This policy change no-doubt in part to win favor with the incoming administration, which itself has vocally complained about the seemingly biased fact-checking they’re subject to.

If the goal is to create a platform where accurate civil discourse is had, these changes make X and Meta no better or worse in that regard than TikTok. These falsehoods don’t need to come from some backroom lever-pull that suddenly pushes more of a certain narrative to users, but removing barriers and allowing the popularity of a post to judge its truth is equally effective.

These sections are more speculation and opinion.

The Ban Is About Optics

As I started to write this, the ban was hours from taking effect. On Saturday, the app went offline with a popup explaining the new law and, oddly, thanking Trump by name for his help in addressing the matter. Then hours later, a similar message came up explaining that thanks to Trump’s action, service is restored.

While Trump and his executive orders are playing a direct role in TikTok’s ability to continue operating, the wording of both that message and the message once service was restored seem like pandering.

Let’s not forget, though, that Trump originally started the ball rolling that would lead to this eventual ban⁸. And while the thought of a sale might be enough appeasement to change minds, that still hasn’t happened. If the accusations of the grave, ongoing threat the app poses are to be believed, kicking the can without a concrete sale in the works seems foolish.

A common theme in US politics is also to create a problem, take some meaningless action against it, then declare the problem solved is a common pattern. It scores a quick win and, if you take the word and action at face value as many do, paints a portrait of swift action to solve problems and win favor. The timing and the messaging in the app pain that this was clearly a stunt.

The Ban Shows Our Government Can Act

One of the most frustrating aspects of this entire process was the sudden unification of an otherwise divided government. The last session of congress was one of the most ineffective by number of bills passed⁹ in the last 50 years, but this issue seemed to be the beacon that all parties could agree on.

Never mind the gun violence killing kids in schools, the cost of living rising beyond what most americans can afford, the wars and humanitarian crises overseas, the number of homeless people and veterans here, the disasters taking place in California and North Carolina, the government nearly shutting down, members of congress continuing to trade stocks in companies they govern, members of congress being unfit to serve due to health issues, members of congress being accused of sex trafficking minors, the broken health insurance system, working graduates unable to pay off student loans, the rise and normalization of hate speech …

A lot of folks argue that this means the evidence of TikTok’s national security risk is so great, that this compelled congress to act, but I disagree. If the evidence is indeed so great it’d do wonders to release even a small piece. If China is really doing what we accuse them of, they know that. We’re already spilling the beans that we’re onto them by taking action, even if we don’t admit to it publicly. Perhaps it’s me being naive, but even a nugget of information of the alleged threat would go a lot further than “trust us.”

On other issues, issues that are quite literally killing Americans daily, we can’t even get a handful of folks crossing the aisle. Even if it’s wasted breath, members of congress before have shown no problem passing bills that won’t pass the other chamber or will certainly get a veto to make a point.

The Ban Is About Control

I haven’t been back on TikTok since the “ban,” but seeing reports of other social media platforms, namely Meta owned platforms, get very weird about certain topics also shows one of the true reasons for the hollow threats. Instagram began censoring content related to Democrats, such as blocking searches¹⁰. Couple this with the changes to their fact checking policies, and the alignment with the incoming administration seems much more than coincidental.

Creating the threat of a looming ban, then stepping in to save a platform at the 11th hour gives the President an awful lot of favor with a company. While he may not use this favor to adjust the platform to fit what he sees as ideal, the appearance of such favor might be enough to sway the decision making at TikTok. Add in partial or even majority US ownership, and the influence becomes even greater.

Ironically, one of the hallmarks of the 2020 executive order, the Senate hearings about TikTok, and the current law is the fear that China will use it’s influence over the app promote or block certain content. Given the blatant changes at Meta and the lack of response from the White House, though, it’s been made exceedingly clear that influence is actually fine, it just needs to be the right influence. Harvesting data is fine, it just needs to be a good multi-national corporation ran by a US billionaire.