Discussion in political and legal arenas about banning TikTok in the US has been going on for several years now. The time has arrived that it may actually happen now, if it didn't already happen. January 19, 2025 is when TikTok ban supposed to be taking effect. There were lengthy legal battles to stop or delay the ban. However, the latest efforts by TikTok legal team hasn't produced desired results for the company. Even president Trump recommended the courts delay the ban. Ironically, the president who first threatened TikTok with a ban, may just be the one who will save it. I don't know what exactly is the new administration and Trump's position regarding TikTok operations in the US. But it seems like Trump is open to let TikTok operate a little longer until some kind of win win solution is established. While TikTok may stop working in January 19, I suspect after the inauguration president Trump may issue some kind of an executive order to reinstate TikTok temporarily, if it is possible. I am just speculating based on what I have been reading on the topic.
The story of TikTok and efforts to force it to be sold to an American company, or be banned is a strange, revealing, and complicated one. In my view it all has to do with the anti-China politics in the US and the west in general. It is not just TikTok that has been the target of politicians, other successful Chinese companies have been under such attacks and worse. For example, Huawei. Similar reasons were presented when imposing restrictions on Huawei and banning its products in the US. This anti-China rhetoric is a really weird one. US and China have had trade relationships for decades now. China has been importing all kinds of goods to the US, the west, and rest of the world for many years. Wherever you go in the world, there is a made in China product. This cooperation started long time ago after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Learning from the mistakes of the Soviet Union, China was able to implement economic reforms that saved it from the collapse as well.
Communism is bad. Majority in the world agree with this statement. There are of course better governance systems. However, we didn't have a problem establishing long term trade with a Communist run country for decades when it benefitted us. Cheap labor, cheap factories, cheap products, let's go. That is what attracted American companies and American consumers. Overall, I would say this trade arrangement was a win win. It helped in growing global international trade, logistics, and partnerships. Trade is always good. When there is trade, war is not a preferred alternative. Economies today are very interdependent. There is no doubt Chinese, American, European, and Asian economies benefitted from these interconnected partnerships and trades for a very long time.
Now all of the sudden we find ourselves in a world that developing nations like China have caught up with developed ones. China is not only building products for American or western companies anymore. China is able to build its own high quality, high tech products and even compete with any global brands. That I think is where American and European politicians see the threat. Competition has arrived. The easy way to eliminate the competition is going back to the old Communism is evil rhetoric, and using these old stories to manipulate the public opinion and passing laws that would limit competitors abilities to compete. There is probably a lot more to this. It is not just politicians, but rather the companies that are failing to innovate lately don't want to face any challenges from new competition.
Back to TikTok. TikTok is app that became successful in very short period of time. It has billions of users and keeps growing. It is owned by a Chinese big tech company, ByteDance. The issue American politicians keep bringing up is that, China has a law that makes all Chinese companies provide all data when requested or demanded. Similar behavior exists in the US and other countries as well. US government agencies ask for data from US companies all the time, and most of the time get them without any issues. When they can't get them fast, there is always NSA that already has backdoor access to all kinds of data.
I agree collecting people's daily data and using for various purposes is bad. In some situations it may even be illegal. Remember when Snowden revealed massive surveillance by intelligence agencies without warrants. Snowden was accused in espionage for patriotic actions that informed the public of the wrongdoings of the government and its intelligence agencies. This all turned out to be true. Nobody faced consequences, but they still want to punish Snowden. These same people who approved, directly or indirectly were involved in these illegal data collection and surveillance, keep calling China's Communist party a bad actor. I have zero intentions to defend a communist party or any dictatorial behavior anywhere. I am simply presenting this massive hypocrisy. The same people who one day pretend to be the advocates and protectors of the free speech rights are the ones what want to take away an ability from its citizens to express themselves using the app of their choice.
Now there may be some national security issues that I don't know about. Perhaps, China is playing a long game and somehow the meta data collecting from TikTok may serve their malicious plans. Maybe. I don't know. But if so, why was TikTok allowed to operate for so many years already? If there was any urgency or some sort of danger, shouldn't it have been banned long time ago? We haven't seen any evidence of any wrongdoings yet. At the same time, the same politicians go and post videos on TikTok, especially when it is time for campaigning.
The core problem of this entire drama is that we have a huge problem of data privacy, or lack of it. American companies like Facebook do the same thing when it comes to data collection, selling monetizing, sharing with governments. Facebook's data hoarding is thousand times worse. Why not spend the time and efforts in the political office to find real solutions such as coming up with laws that would protect data privacy, that would prevent all companies from data collections and manipulation. These real solutions they will not even consider. Because they all receive some sort of benefits from these companies. Because intelligence agencies also need these companies to collect the data for them. Because they are corrupt and never tell the truth, especially when truth matters.
I have read reports that Zuckerburg and Facebook funded a political party in effort to make the TikTok ban happen. They spend millions. Isn't that crazy? What an unfair competition! What a corruption! Maybe it is legal donations, I don't know. But it is beyond strange that a company like Facebook would spend any money to ban its competition. This is what has been reported. The worst are probably in secret deals that haven't been uncovered yet.
To avoid the ban, ByteDance can sell TikTok to a non-Chinese, and preferably American company at fair market value. These politicians don't want TikTok to go away. They just don't want Chinese government have any influence. Microsoft was the early candidates to purchase TikTok 4-5 years ago. That deal didn't go through. ByteDance realized that they have a winner and didn't want to sell. Why would they? Zuckerburg didn't sell Facebook for the same reasons. I think ByteDance is determined in not selling the company. There may still be other options, otherwise they would have probably reached some deal already.
Lastly, I think there are other ways to make sure TikTok is not vulnerable to Chinese government influence. The preferred one is of course banning all companies from collecting and storing data. Another one may be forensic investigations and oversight that can monitor how the data is being used. Another one may also be an joint company where ByteDance still hold majority stakes but another American company runs the TikTok. This story is strange one. I am sure we will hear more for years to come.
In conclusion, the best solution is decentralized system. Opt out of the centralized data stealing and manipulating social media. Join Hive, be free!