NetworkTigers discusses the TikTok ban and what it means.
TikTok has found itself in the crosshairs of the US federal government and is now undertaking efforts to defend itself against a bipartisan bill that aims to ban the app, at least in its current form.
While TikTok seems to have the same community-building pros and troubling cons associated with Facebook, Instagram, X, or any other social network, its association with China and its exponential growth puts it in a unique position among those US-based companies and is the reason for lawmaker concern.
TikTok’s history and growth
TikTok’s origins began with ByteDance, a Chinese company founded in 2012 that achieved success via a news aggregator called Toutiao that focused on an exclusively Chinese audience. Following Toutiao, ByteDance launched Douyin in 2016. This video-sharing app became a success in China, so ByteDance created a version for the international market called TikTok.
In 2017, ByteDance purchased Musical.ly, the number one downloaded app in the Apple App Store in 2015. Musical.ly became synonymous with quick, fun clips of users lip-syncing to popular songs.
ByteDance rolled Musical.ly into TikTok, expanding the user base and reaching a wide audience through an algorithm that, to this day, is seen as incredibly effective at both providing users with the content they want and connecting creators to viewers interested in what they’re up to. While Facebook and YouTube algorithms seem to throw users curveballs and put barriers between video makers and potential viewers, TikTok communities experience little friction, and many creators began to favor the platform for generating more views and support than they could achieve elsewhere. As a result, other platforms began to lean into the short video content that TikTok made so popular with less-than-perfect results.
When rapper Lil Nas X released his hit single “Old Town Road” on the platform in 2019, it went viral. It sent the song to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 17 weeks, cementing TikTok’s position as a viable avenue for major artists instead of just a silly app for cooking tutorials and dance moves.
As a result, the app had reached the mainstream. It began to amass even more traffic while other social networks were hemorrhaging users, many of whom were dissatisfied with the lack of reach and positive feedback they were getting from algorithms that they felt were not serving them adequately.
TikTok gets political
At the tail end of 2019, a report from the Washington Post revealed that some politically charged content that was widespread throughout other social media platforms was conspicuously hard to find on TikTok, most notably protests against the Chinese government that were taking place in Hong Kong.
Internal documents uncovered by The Guardian also described how TikTok’s moderators were told to remove content perceived as critical of the Chinese government.
These findings began to concern politicians who viewed the platform’s tremendous growth and apparent inclination towards censorship in favor of Chinese interests as a potential national security threat.
Federal investigations into the app resulted in the Pentagon recommending military personnel stop using TikTok before officially banning it from all government-issued phones in January 2019, just as TikTok became the second-most downloaded app in the world.
In August of 2020, then-President Trump signed an executive order banning American companies from doing business with ByteDance and followed up with a second order requiring ByteDance to divest itself from TikTok’s US operations within 90 days. However, the vague nature of the orders and other issues that took priority in the last few months of the Trump administration resulted in neither order being fully enforced, and the app’s ban faded into the background.
While the election of President Biden saw a focus on bringing the country back from the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, a ban of TikTok still loomed. A series of investigations and reports through 2022, one of which revealed that ByteDance employees accessed the data of journalists who wrote about the company, put an outright blockage back on the table.
In February 2023, the White House ordered all federal agencies to delete TikTok from any government-issued devices within 30 days.
While rumored for nearly a year, an official bill to ban TikTok or require ByteDance to sell the app to a US company arrived in Washington in the spring of 2023. Despite the company’s assurances that the app is not a threat to the US, the bill passed in the House of Representatives in March 2024. This was followed by its approval in the Senate and its signing into law by President Biden in April 2024.
Is TikTok really dangerous?
US government officials and plenty of security experts focus on ByteDance being a Beijing-based company. Considering the app’s popularity, the amount of user data it collects, and the Chinese government’s known habit of censorship of any content that paints leadership in a negative light, concern over how the app may be weaponized is not without warrant.
However, independent reports have shown that the data TikTok collects is not much different from what is gathered by US-based social networks and that censorship of hot-button topics is, in fact, not prevalent on the app, even though it still is on ByteDance’s Douyin.
A 2021 study from Citizen Lab concluded that “the platform does not enforce obvious post censorship.” Analysts from the Georgia Institute of Technology found jokes about Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and sensitive topics such as Taiwan’s independence were present and that “videos in all of these categories can easily be found on TikTok. Many are popular and widely shared.”
While reports may not indicate blatant malicious intent, government officials still worry the app could be used to spy on users, track their movement, and collect data that can be used to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s trending among US citizens. Fears remain that TikTok’s algorithm could be “tuned” to spread misinformation among users, create discontent, and set the stage for political unrest, with FBI director Christoper Wray stating in 2022 that “the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users. Or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used to influence operations if they so chose. Or to control software on millions of devices, which gives it opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices.”
The fact that Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law says that Chinese businesses and citizens are required to “support, assist and cooperate” with the nation’s government certainly fuels the flames of anxiety, although critics argue that this quote has been taken out of context and that the law does reserve the rights of private companies.
As it stands now, the worry appears to be centered around theoretical threats as opposed to those actually occurring, with many critics referring to TikTok as a “Trojan horse” that could be opened when the time is right. With Chinese state-sponsored hackers embedding themselves in US industries and networks associated with critical infrastructure, as well as engaging in social media influence campaigns utilizing fake accounts and phony news sites, it seems as though tapping into the influential power of the world’s most extensive social network would be a no-brainer for a nation intent on disruption and espionage.
What happens now?
The law, as passed, states that ByteDance has 270 days to sell TikTok to a US company or one belonging to an allied country or face an outright ban. Unless the company shows due diligence in complying with this law and is granted an extension, the deadline is January 19, 2025.
TikTok is not rolling over and is instead threatening to take legal action against the ruling, citing the ban as “unconstitutional.”
The company’s CEO, Shou Chew, posted a video on the platform telling users, “Rest assured: we aren’t going anywhere. We are confident and will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail.”
In the digital age, January 2025 might be a thousand years away. Additionally, Donald Trump, running for the Presidency once again, has reversed his opinion on the ban of the platform with some drawing connections between his change of heart and recent meetings with a Republican mega-donor who has a sizeable financial stake in ByteDance. For his part, Trump merely explains his flip-flop by reiterating a desire for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg not to gain additional business, referring to the Facebook creator as the “true Enemy of the People.”
This means that the follow-through on a TikTok ban and the fate of the world’s most popular social network may depend on who is in office next year.
About NetworkTigers
NetworkTigers is the leader in the secondary market for Grade A, seller-refurbished networking equipment. Founded in January 1996 as Andover Consulting Group, which built and re-architected data centers for Fortune 500 firms, NetworkTigers provides consulting and network equipment to global governmental agencies, Fortune 2000, and healthcare companies. www.networktigers.com.
