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December 6, 2024
A three-judge bench for the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals voted today to allow Congress’s forced sale of TikTok (or face a ban in the United States). If slapped with a ban, TikTok will be unavailable on the App Store and Google Play and will be inaccessible on US web-hosting services. Existing app users may continue to be able to access content but may see their app slowly deteriorate over time. Although it is difficult to gauge how Chinese-based Bytedance will respond to the law — having repeatedly emphasized that TikTok is not for sale —, Bytedance will most likely sell the services if obligated to do so by the US government instead of risk losing its nearly 200 million-person US user base for nothing.
President-elect Donald Trump, who had previously been critical of TikTok during his first term and used similar threats of selling it, has since reversed his position on the banning of the social media platform. Despite repeatedly touting an anti-China stance and promising aggressive action against Chinese companies, Trump has come out in support of TikTok in recent months because it competes with Facebook and its family of services. Since the 2020 election, Trump has been highly critical of Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, for showing bias when it comes to content selection algorithms when it comes to political content. Trump’s relationship with Zuckerberg has shown signs of thawing, however, after the Meta chief visited the former real estate mogul at his Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago.
It may also be important to consider Trump’s other interests in the social media business. Trump currently owns a majority stake worth upwards of $3 billion in Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of right-wing social media platform Truth Social. Trump has also developed a very close relationship with tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who owns X, formerly known as Twitter. Although TikTok may not directly compete with either X or Truth Social as TikTok is primarily video-based, its ban could benefit both Trump and Musk’s companies.
While TikTok is now a political football, the impacts of a potential TikTok ban reverberate far beyond the Oval Office. TikTok poses a genuine national threat to its hundreds of millions of American users. Although the fears of espionage may often be exaggerated by members of Congress and politicians for political gain, the threat and real possibility of the CCP tracking data and influencing American users is alarming. Potential for crime is, in itself, not grounds for conviction, but when things as pertinent to national security are involved, said risks should not be overlooked.
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