Meanwhile, TikTok itself has never actually operated in mainland China and has also made moves to distance itself from ByteDance. The app, which was specifically built for non-Chinese markets, is headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles. In his hearing, Chew confirmed to Congress that “TikTok, as a U.S. company incorporated in the United States, is subject to the laws of the United States” — in stark contrast to lawmakers’ efforts to brand the app as Chinese government-controlled.
So what’s really behind the TikTok ban bill?
Lawmakers’ focus hasn’t only been on national security and data privacy. Congress has taken an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach in taking issue with TikTok, citing child safety and accusations that the algorithm is addictive. The resulting mishmash of critiques has muddled good-faith criticism with groundless, ignorant reactions and concerns that would be more correctly applied across all social media platforms — and not just to TikTok.
As explained by Fight for the Future’s Evan Greer on CNN, while TikTok certainly does have a “surveillance and capitalist business model, which vacuums up as much personal information about users as possible and then uses it to serve content that keeps us clicking, scrolling, and generating ad revenue” — so do most major U.S. social media platforms, including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Snapchat, and X.
While all major tech companies’ handling of personal user data of course matters, the zeroing in on ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters as proof alone of TikTok’s data privacy risks smacks of Sinophobia, as pointed out by some politicians like Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). And in Politico, Zachary Karabell called the hostility at TikTok’s congressional hearing “a reminder that a hardening stance against China is one of the few areas of genuine bipartisanship.”
Still others are questioning the role that not just anti-Chinese sentiment, but anti-Palestinian sentiment played in the bill’s passage. Since the bill became law, at least two Republican lawmakers have, according to Rolling Stone suggested that the app fueled too much sympathy for Gazans, including Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT, who said: “Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.” (Worth noting, too, is that the TikTok bill was bundled with a foreign aid package that included $26.4 billion in aid for Israel, including $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.)
And of course, there’s the question of money. As Justin Sherman wrote in Slate: “Some countries will look at the US seeking to expel a major Chinese tech company, one that is now competitive with US giants (and that Facebook wants to sink), and wonder whether it’s the US using national security as a cover to go after a rival of domestic social media giants.”
If it does go into effect, what would a TikTok ban look like?
Were a ban to go into effect, the app could get pulled from app stores, resulting in there being no way to download updates, but it couldn’t be removed from phones where it was already downloaded. Theoretically, if the U.S. followed the lead of India — where the app has been banned since January 2021 — the government could try and force internet service providers to block the app.
