TikTok’s best defence against a ban comes from its US supporters

The defence of free expression, danger of losing youth voters and risk of hitting small businesses could be enough to block an outright ban
Beijing could also help by amending its laws to explicitly prohibit requests for transfers of overseas data

Winston Mok

Published: 9:00pm, 11 Apr 2023

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After telecoms equipment and semiconductors, America’s oppression of China is now extending to social media as it mulls a ban on TikTok. But it has no case for such a ban, which would only benefit big tech competitors like YouTube and Facebook at the expense of US consumers.

Various studies back this up. The Internet Governance Project by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US and Singapore’s School of Public Policy found no proof that TikTok exported censorship. University of Toronto’s The Citizen Lab assessed that TikTok collected information similar to that harvested by Facebook and did not send data to China, therefore posing no inherent threat to US national security – a similar position reached by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

As Senator Rand Paul pointed out: “Every accusation of data gathering that has been attributed to TikTok could also be attributed to domestic big tech companies.”

Yet politicians at the Congressional hearing on TikTok last month chose to conflate American social media issues with perceived threats from TikTok’s Chinese parentage.

A key concern at the hearing was child protection. After a record US$5.7 million fine in the US in 2019, TikTok was recently fined £12.7 million (US$15.8 million) in the UK for misusing children’s data. But the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, with offices in London and Washington, pointed out that TikTok was far from alone in doing too little to police the sharing of harmful content. Until a belated rectification, for instance, Facebook had millions of QAnon followers.

Like all social media, TikTok uses addictive algorithms. The motivation is commercial – nothing to do with the national origin of TikTok’s corporate parent. The solution is surely proper regulatory frameworks for data privacy and youth protection, rather than singling out apps for their China affiliation.

Representative Buddy Carter questions TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi during the Congressional hearing in Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, Washington, on March 23. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

With confrontational rhetoric, preconceived judgment and sometimes clueless questions, US Congress members seemed unpersuaded by TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi’s clarifications at the hearing. Bent on prosecuting, they were, in turn, judged by millions of TikTok users. Bashing all things Chinese may sometimes seem the surest way for US politicians to score points, but a TikTok ban would pose challenges.

The first is political. If the Democratic Party failed to stop the ban, it would undermine its youth voter base. When Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debuted on TikTok arguing against its ban, it went viral. And when Republican Senator Josh Hawley pushed for a fast track ban, Senator Paul, also a Republican, warned that they should go ahead only “if Republicans want to continuously lose elections for a generation”.

Second, there are legal hurdles, not least the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. Last month, 16 US public interest groups submitted a letter to Congress opposing a TikTok ban on the grounds that it would infringe free expression. And the American Civil Liberties Union has written to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee to express the same concern.

Banning TikTok would also be against US economic interests. Many small and medium-sized enterprises use TikTok to generate business, particularly among Gen Z consumers. TikTok has been an effective tool to promote local economic development, too.

03:50

TikTok influencers rally against potential US ban

Forcing a TikTok sale would be confiscatory and American ownership does not guarantee protection of national interests. Imagine TikTok in the hands of News Corp, which may pose a far greater peril to American democracy. Just look at the US$1.6 billion lawsuit faced by its Fox News, brought by Dominion Voting Systems in response to allegations of election fraud.

TikTok proposes to ring-fence its US user data through Project Texas, managed by American tech giant Oracle Corp. In the plan, TikTok’s US operations would come under a separate corporate entity with an independent board of directors. Since TikTok is willing to subject itself to rigorous government and independent oversight, American ownership is not a necessary or sufficient condition for accountable governance.

Furthermore, the ownership options for TikTok USA go beyond binary alternatives. A partial interest may be sold to US investors. ByteDance’s US shareholders could convert some of their shareholdings to TikTok USA. In parallel with ByteDance’s potential listing, TikTok or TikTok USA may also be listed in New York, and thus subject to US public-listed scrutiny.

TikTok is targeted in the US for being Chinese, not for its deeds

TikTok’s clarification that it is a commercial entity separate from the Chinese government – while obviously true – is not helped by Beijing’s recent regulatory clampdown on platform companies or the state’s 1 per cent ownership of ByteDance’s main domestic subsidiary and its representation on the board of directors.

It is unclear how effectively the Chinese state may “protect” TikTok from US oppression. TikTok’s peers, such as Facebook and YouTube, are already banned in China. Perhaps the government may show some goodwill by allowing limited use of Google, say, in foreign languages only and in selected “free information zones” in China.

Chinese laws that oblige organisations to cooperate in providing information for national intelligence have shaped negative perceptions abroad. This is despite the government repeatedly clarifying that such laws would not be applied to data outside China. This reassurance would be more credible if Chinese laws were amended to explicitly prohibit requests for transfers of overseas data.

Instead of a showdown, a commercial compromise may be reached on TikTok – whose best defence would come from its very large user base and civil society in the US.

Winston Mok, a private investor, was previously a private equity investor

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