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Is the TikTok threat really about AI?
Four years after President Donald Trump’s initial unsuccessful attempt to ban TikTok on national security grounds, Congress succeeded in passing bipartisan legislation to force the app's removal, which former President Joe Bidensigned into law. The ban, requiring mobile app stores, cloud hosts, and internet service providers to drop TikTok, was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday despite challenges from TikTok, content creators, and free speech advocates who argued it violated the First Amendment.
Yet TikTok’s presence in America continues through an unusual turn of events. After briefly going offline in the US late Saturday, the app resumed service on Sunday ahead of President Trump’s inauguration on Monday, with the new president issuing an executive order late Monday to keep TikTok operational for another 75 days. This executive intervention, however bizarre since Trump initiated the effort to ban TikTok during his first term, also raises complex legal questions about presidential authority to override — or ignore — congressional legislation.
Throughout this political saga, a fundamental question remains: What exactly is TikTok’s threat to national security? Critics typically focus on two main concerns: China’s potential access to American user data and its ability to influence public opinion through the app’s content algorithm.
While TikTok stands as one of the world’s most sophisticated implementations of artificial intelligence in social media, its role in the broader US-China AI competition is nuanced. The platform’s AI capabilities, though powerful, operate largely parallel to rather than directly within the ongoing technological rivalry between the two nations, which is more focused on large language models, generative AI, and the advanced chips that power these systems.
“TikTok is AI, but not the kind that is fueling today’s global AI race,” explained Tinglong Dai, a professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. “Its recommendation engine is more akin to reinforcement learning, the AI technique behind AlphaGo, the DeepMind system that mastered the board game Go by training against itself. Unlike generative AI models like ChatGPT, TikTok's AI isn’t about creating – it’s about optimizing engagement and influence.”
This distinction is important. While attention has focused on TikTok’s data collection practices, experts suggest the more significant concern lies elsewhere. After all, TikTok collects about as much data from users as any other social media app.
Kenton Thibaut, senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said that data collection would become a bigger issue if the US were to enter formal conflict with China. “Should the US end up in a conflict with China, it is the device-level compromises that the app represents” — such as collecting real-time location data — “that, in my opinion, pose a much greater potential threat than the data-gathering or algorithmic manipulation concerns that are currently at the fore of the conversation surrounding the app,” she said.
But TikTok’s algorithm is more relevant to the AI race than the data it collects, according to Xiaomeng Lu, director of geo-technology at Eurasia Group. “That’s why China indicated that ByteDance can’t sell TikTok’s AI recommendation algorithm without government approval last time around, and is very likely still holding that view,” she said.
The potential value of this algorithm hasn’t gone unnoticed by the private sector. Perplexity AI’s recent bid to merge with TikTok’s US operations, reportedly valued at “well north of $50 billion,” suggests that TikTok’s recommendation system might be valuable for advancing the capabilities of an AI search engine like Perplexity.
However, Anton Dahbura, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, offers a more skeptical view: “I have no reason to doubt that TikTok’s algorithm is very good, but given the state of many software technologies today, it isn’t irreproducible,” he said. “However, controlling the flow of information on such a scale and for nefarious purposes by any company should be recognized as unethical, irresponsible, and hopefully someday, illegal.”
The real concern, according to Dai, extends beyond mere technology: “The bigger story isn’t TikTok’s data or even ByteDance's dominance — it’s Xi Jinping’s global ambitions. TikTok gives China an unprecedented ability to shape what Americans see, think, believe, and even dream.”
With TikTok poised to survive in the United States under President Trump’s conditional approval, pending a potential partial sale, the platform represents an unprecedented scenario in American media: Never before has such an influential platform, powered by sophisticated AI and used by millions of Americans, remained under the potential influence of an adversarial nation. But politics makes the strangest bedfellows: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chewattended Trump’s inauguration on Monday, an assurance that Trump will rewrite the typical bounds of the US-China relationship, perhaps even softening his stance on China if he feels like it serves him well.A person holds a placard on the day justices hear oral arguments in a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban on national security grounds, outside the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, U.S., January 10, 2025.
The Tiktok ban is official: Here’s everything you need to know
TikTok users had been scrolling with baited breath for days when finally, after a week’s deliberation, the Supreme Court announced on Friday that it had unanimously voted to uphold Congress’ ban of the Chinese-owned app.
Case recap: SCOTUS rejected the app’s claims that it had a First Amendment right to continue operating in the US, ruling instead that the massive amounts of data it was collecting on Americans posed a national security risk.
What does this mean for Tiktok? During arguments last week, TikTok’s lawyer said the app would “go dark” in the US if it lost the case.
While it has not confirmed whether it will make good on this threat, it's certain to disappear from the Google and Apple app stores and be prohibited from updates when the ban takes effect on Sunday.
What would the impact be? Currently, nearly 17o million Americans use TikTok monthly. The app is home to approximately 7 million small businesses, adding $24 billion to the US economy in 2023 according to an Oxford economics report.
But will Washington flipflop on Tiktok? The bill to ban the app was a rare moment of bipartisanship for the US government. Lawmakers sidestepped the normal gridlock to go from introducing the bill to passing it and getting it signed by President Joe Biden in just seven weeks. But now, as angry TikTokers ready their pitchforks, the Biden administration is exploring last minute options for how to delay the ban so that it does not define his final day in the Oval Office. (Or give Donald Trump, who has also said he would try to save the app via executive order, fodder to pin blame for the ban on the Democrats.)
Is it time to learn Mandarin? As the app’s days looked numbered, millions of Americans unconcerned by the CCP potentially having access to their data have flocked to another Chinese owned app, Xiaohongshu, a social media platform whose name translates to “Little Red Book” in a nod to the Chinese Communist Party. There, seasoned users have started giving the newcomers Mandarin lessons and have formed in-app group chats for “TikTok refugees” to get the hang of things there.
Gaza ceasefire likely as Biden and Trump both push
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
A Gaza ceasefire has gained momentum. What is the likelihood a deal will be reached soon?
We've heard this news before. At least five times over the last year that we've heard we were almost at a Gaza ceasefire. This time around though it looks much more likely. Why is that? Because Trump is about to be president, because Trump's envoys and Biden's envoys have been working together on these issues, and also because that means pressing the Israeli government in a way that feels much more serious if you are the prime minister. And also because Trump has been pressing Hamas. And so, I think the unilateralism is there. The fact the deal was already very close, and now this means Biden gets to say he got the deal and Trump gets to say he's ended a war, at least for the time being, and a lot more hostages get freed. So yeah, this time around it looks pretty likely.
What do I make of a potential sale of TikTok to Elon Musk?
Well, it's just been announced that the Chinese are considering it. I always thought that it was more likely than not that if the Supreme Court were to uphold a ban that the Chinese would probably allow a sale to go through. Though they were going to say they were never going to until the last moment because why give up leverage when you don't necessarily have to? So their historic unwillingness doesn't mean to me that they're actually unwilling. To the extent that there is a deal and it goes to Elon, he becomes more powerful, and he also is seen by the Chinese as owing them one. So would he facilitate an improved, a more stable relationship between the US and China? It's an early indication that he could play a role. He hasn't said anything on the China front yet, but certainly you would expect that he would meet with the high-level envoy that's going to the inauguration that Xi Jinping was invited to on the 20th. That's what we should watch in the next week. Okay, that's it for that one.
What does Lebanon's new president mean for Hezbollah?
Weaker Hezbollah, but so much is going to be determined on what Israel decides to do on the ground in the south of Lebanon. Are they staying there for a longer period of time? We've heard news of late that they intend to maintain that occupation in a longer than just couple of weeks, couple of months environment, which makes it harder to keep Hezbollah from starting fighting again. On balance, I think this ceasefire is looking a little shakier right now, even with the new Lebanese president than it had a few weeks ago. We'll see. But if it does break down, the level of fighting won't be what it was a few months ago because Hezbollah doesn't have that capacity and the Iranians can't restock their weapons because Assad has fallen in Syria.
Protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, rally to show support to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen April 26, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Houthis widen strike zone, Americans sour on TikTok, Warsaw synagogue targeted, Russia shows off US tank
300: A Houthi drone launched from Yemen last Friday struck the MSC Orion, a cargo vessel transiting the Indian Ocean, over 300 nautical miles away from the Red Sea, where Houthis have constrained their attacks until now. Striking targets in the Indian Ocean presents a serious escalation, and experts told the Guardian that ships linked to Israel, the US, or the UK would likely need to be rerouted even further from normal shipping lanes to stay safe.
58: A 58% majority of Americans said they believe China is using the social video-sharing app TikTok to “influence American public opinion,” according to a new poll from Reuters and Ipsos. The same poll found that a slim 50% majority also supported banning the app, which the Biden administration may do if parent company ByteDance can’t find a buyer.
3: An unknown perpetrator hurled three firebombs into Warsaw’s main synagogue Tuesday night, drawing major condemnations from Polish political figures but causing little damage. Before the Holocaust, Poland had Europe’s largest Jewish population, over three million, which was so thoroughly expelled or exterminated by the Nazis that today the country has only a few thousand practicing Jews.
30: A Moscow exhibition is displaying over 30 pieces of Western military equipment captured on the battlefield in Ukraine, including an American M1 Abrams tank, a German Leopard 2, and a French AMX-10RC. The Russian government is using the exhibition to show that “the West destroys peace on the planet,” according to Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.TikTok logo on a phone surrounded by the American, Israeli, and Chinese flags.
The battle over TikTok’s future, explained
Last Wednesday, as part of the sweeping foreign-aid package that included much-neededfunding for Ukraine’s defense, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill requiring that TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, sell the popular video-sharing app to an American buyer within a year or face a ban in the United States.
As Iwrote a little over a year ago, I think this is a close call but the right move. TikTok is ultimately beholden to the Chinese government, an authoritarian state-capitalist regime locked in an increasingly adversarial strategic competition with the US. As intelligence agencies have warned, the platform poses a national security vulnerability because Beijing can commandeer it to surveil and manipulate Americans. No remedies or assurances to the contrary can mitigate that risk short of a Chinese divestment or an outright ban.
Most importantly, the Chinese Communist Party already bans all US social media apps under the guise of national security. TikTok itself is banned in China, where ByteDance is only allowed to operate a heavily censored version for domestic users. In my ideal world, this would be an area for US-China competition rather than confrontation. Alas, the CCP isn’t taking down its so-called Great Firewall anytime soon, so I see the US divestment/ban order as a fair and reciprocal response that will protect not only US national security but also American social media companies from their most formidable competitor.
Why now?
TikTok has long drawn political condemnation from both sides of the aisle, especially in the fractious House, where hostility to China is the only reliable area of bipartisan agreement. And yet, over the past three years, the viral Chinese social media platform survived effort after effort to bring it to heel, including a forced divestiture order in 2020 under then-President Donald Trump, a near-pass RESTRICT Act, and a struck-down ban in Montana. Through it all, its reach has continued to grow unabated.
But TikTok’s luck has just about run out. And as strange as it may sound, it had little to do with a change in the US-China relationship and everything to do with … the Gaza war.
Since Oct. 7, many Americans’ TikTok feeds have become awash in anti-Israeli and, in a lot of cases, antisemitic content. This isn’t entirely surprising – after all, by virtue of their demographics (young, non-Western, Muslim), TikTok creators and users are far more likely to hold pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli, and antisemitic views than their Instagram or X counterparts. But beyond this organic bias, there’s also reasonably suggestive evidence that TikTok’s algorithm and moderation rules have artificially suppressed pro-Israeli content and amplified pro-Palestinian and antisemitic sentiment. This is consistent with otherstudies that show ByteDance shapes the feed’s content in accordance with the Chinese Communist Party’s policy goals.
After trying and failing to convince TikTok CEO Shou Chew to change course, a small but motivated group of wealthy and politically connected Jewish and Israeli Americans bootstrapped a PR and lobbying campaign that ultimately managed to achieve what years of anti-China efforts couldn’t.
Congress was already primed to do something/anything on antisemitism and show support for Israel; beating up on Beijing just was the cherry on top. House Speaker Mike Johnson figured he could use the TikTok divestment provision as a sweetener to get the foreign assistance package over the line with his members, knowing the prospect of finally passing Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan aid would be enough to overcome tepid Senate opposition to the TikTok bill. (Maybe he’s effective at his job, after all?) A ban would also meet no resistance from the White House given the Biden administration’s approach to tech and investment restrictions on China, especially in an election year. It was the perfect storm for TikTok.
What’s next?
Worry not: You can keep doomscrolling on TikTok at least through Inauguration Day. The law gives ByteDance until January 19, 2025, to sell the app and allows the president to grant a one-time 90-day extension into April. In the meantime, TikTok will likely challenge the legislation in court on First Amendment grounds, which – though unlikely to succeed – will extend the timeline and almost certainly push any decision into the next presidential administration.
Ironically, TikTok’s best hope lies with Trump retaking the White House in November. Ironically, I say, because Trump was the one who first tried to ban TikTok in 2020 through an executive order that was blocked by the courts … before flip-flopping earlier this year and becoming a vocal opponent of the policy on the back of a sizable campaign contribution by major Republican donor and TikTok investor Jeff Yass. It’s not a stretch to imagine that Trump would use the threat of a divestiture order/ban as a bargaining chip in negotiations with China on other issues closer to his heart and less damaging to his wallet, eventually agreeing not to enforce it in return for concessions in areas such as trade.
Should Biden win reelection and TikTok’s legal challenges fail, it will be up to the Chinese government to decide whether to allow ByteDance to divest. As of now, Beijing’s official position is that it will prohibit the export of TikTok’s AI-powered recommendation algorithm – the platform’s core asset – to a US buyer (without which the app is practically worthless). But the issue is still being quietly debated within the Chinese system, suggesting the only decision maker who really matters, President Xi Jinping, is yet to make a final call – and may not until and unless a sale is actually forced.
Of course, even if Beijing were to sign off on a spinoff, it takes two to tango. There’s only a handful of potential American buyers who could afford theprice tag of TikTok’s US business. Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had reportedly made a bid to purchase the app with a group of investors back in March, but it remains to be seen whether he’d cough up the cash when the rubber meets the road. The most obvious candidates to snap up the company would be publicly traded tech giants that would come under immediate regulatory scrutiny over antitrust issues.
If there was no viable buyer or if China’s government refused to allow the sale, the divestiture order would effectively become a ban. In this scenario, TikTok would eventually be kicked off the US market, forcing the app’s 170 million American users to Google “how to download free VPN.” Overnight, cryptocurrency pump-and-dump schemes would lose their oomph. Real estate influencers would have to move back to their parents’ basements. Kids might have to learn to talk to each other. Chaos would no doubt ensue.
Somewhat more seriously, a ban would put a strain on an already tense US-China relationship. At the same time, given all theefforts to stabilize ties since Woodside, Beijing’s response would focus more on insulating the Chinese economy from further US tech containment efforts than on tit-for-tat retaliation against high-profile US tech companies. Not only because there’s little the Chinese can do on this front that they haven’t been doing for years, with most American social media platforms already banned from the Chinese market. But also because targeting any remaining potential targets, such as Apple or Tesla, risks dampening foreign investor sentiment at a time when China is struggling mightily to boost confidence in its economy.
At the end of the day, Xi doesn’t care much about “decadent” consumer apps such as TikTok. He’d rather worry about the commanding heights of tech and economic competition. The Chinese people writ large, however, would see a ban as yet another US attempt to constrain China’s rise.
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to members of the media on the day the House approved legislation providing $95 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, at Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 20, 2024.
Tiktok ban and foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan passes in the House
After months of stalling, the House of Representatives agreed in four separate votes to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan on Saturday, as House Speaker Mike Johnson puts his job on the line to advance critical aid to America’s allies. The bills will now head to the Senate and are expected to pass on Tuesday.
The legislation includes $61 billion for Kyiv; $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza; and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. It also mandates that $10 billion of Ukraine’s aid be a loan, a concept supported by former President Donald Trump and critical to keeping many Republicans on board.
But the far-right faction of the GOP, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, is still threatening to oust Johnson over his decision to call for a vote.
The House also passed a potential TikTok ban during its round of voting today, putting pressure on the Senate to approve the legislation when it votes on the foreign aid bills on Tuesday. If it passes the Senate, TikTok would be forced to divest from Chinese-owned ByteDance within the year or face a nationwide ban.
US TikTok ban: China’s complaints are a double standard
Beijing blocks US technology companies like Facebook, Google, and X from operating in China. So why is the Chinese government so upset over the proposed TikTok ban in Congress? US Ambassador to China Nick Burns discussed China’s double standard when it comes to foreign tech firms on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer. The US has been pushing for TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app’s US operation, and millions of nationalist netizens on Chinese social media are decrying it as another example of the US limiting China’s global rise.
Burns says the idea that American firms could operate in China by following Chinese data and national security laws isn’t a convincing argument because a wide swath of US tech has been blocked for years, and China’s “Great Firewall” was set up to insulate Chinese people from the rest of the world. China’s rationale for US tech companies’ absence in China, he says, is fundamentally anti-democratic.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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Who pays the price for a TikTok ban?
It’s a tough time to be an influencer in America.
TikTok’s future in the United States may be up against the clock after the House voted in favor of banning the popular social media app if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, doesn’t sell. President Joe Biden said he’d sign the bill if it reaches his desk, but it’s unclear whether the Senate will pass the legislation.
Biden and a good chunk of Congress are worried ByteDance is essentially an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Do they have a point, or are they just fearmongering in an election year amid newly stabilized but precarious relations between Washington and Beijing?
All eyes on China
In 2017, China passed a national security law that allows Beijing to compel Chinese companies to share their data under certain circumstances. That law and others have US officials worried that China could collect information from TikTok on roughly 150 million US users. Pro-ban advocates also lament that the CCP has a seat on the ByteDance board, meaning the party has direct influence over the company.
Another worry: TikTok could push Chinese propaganda on Americans, shaping domestic politics and electoral outcomes at a time when US democracy is fragile. TikTok denies the accusations, and there’s no public evidence that China has used TikTok to spy on Americans.
Still, there is growing bipartisan support for taking on TikTok and its connections to China, says Xiaomeng Lu, director of geo-technology at Eurasia Group. And the public may not be privy to all of the motivations for banning the app. “We don’t know what the US intelligence community knows,” she says.
Incidentally, none of these security worries have stopped members of Congress who voted for the potential ban from using TikTok, while a few who voted against it – including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush – are users themselves.
In theory, the TikTok bill could apply to other apps – anything designated as being too close to foreign adversaries and a threat to the US or its interests. But TikTok and China are the main focus right now, and not just for the US ...
View up north
Canada banned TikTok from government phones in 2023, the same year Ottawa launched a security review of the wildly popular app without letting Canadians, 3.2 million of whom are users, know it was doing so.
Ottawa isn’t rushing to get ahead of Washington on this, so it could be a while before we see the results of the review. There’s no indication of any TikTok bill in the works, but there may be no need for one. The security review could lead to “enhanced scrutiny” of TikTok under the Investment Canada Act by way of a provision concerning digital media.
Canada would also have a hard time breaking from the US if it decides to deep-six TikTok given the extent to which the two countries are intertwined when it comes to national security.
Consequences of tanking TikTok
If there is a ban, critics are already warning of dire consequences. The economic impact could be substantial, especially for those who make a living on the app. That includes 7 million small and medium businesses in the US that contribute tens of billions of dollars to the country’s GDP, according to a report by Oxford Economics and TikTok. In Canada, TikTok has an ad reach of 36% among all adults. If app stores are forced to remove TikTok, it will be a blow to the influencer-advertising industrial complex that drives an increasingly large segment of the two economies.
There are also fears a ban will infringe on free speech rights, including the capacity for journalists to do their job and reach eyeballs. In 2022, 67% of US teens aged 13 to 17 used TikTok. In Canada, 14% of Canadians who used the internet were on TikTok, including 53% of connected 18-24-year-olds – which is the vast majority of them.
Meanwhile, there’s consternation that a ban would undermine US criticisms of foreign states, particularly authoritarian ones, for their censorship regimes. Some say an American ban would embolden authoritarians who would be keen to use the ban as justification for invoking or extending their crackdowns.
Big Tech could grow
A forced TikTok sale could also invite its own set of problems. Only so many entities are capable of purchasing a tech behemoth – Meta, Apple, and Alphabet. But if they hoovered up a competitor, there would be concerns about further entrenching the companies and inviting even more anti-competitive behavior among oligopolists. Also lost in the TikTok handwringing: Domestic tech companies pose their own surveillance and mis- or disinformation challenges to democracy and cohesion.
There are a lot of “ifs” between the bill passed by the House and a TikTok ban. The Senate isn’t in a rush to vote on it – doing so could take months – and if it does pass, it will almost certainly face a long series of court battles. If all of that happens and the law survives, ByteDance could in theory sell TikTok, but Beijing has said it would oppose a forced sale.
Meanwhile, there’s next to no chance Ottawa will try to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok or ban it if the US doesn’t move first. Doing so would just invite TikTok to bounce from Canada and its comparatively small market.
What about … elections?
The political consequences of a ban wouldn’t necessarily extend to the 2024 election. If young people are bumped from the money-making app, will they vote with their feet?
Graeme Thompson, a senior global macro-geopolitics analyst at Eurasia Group, is not convinced the move will affect votes. “To the extent that it affects the elections,” he says, “it may be more about communications and how political parties and candidates get their messages out on social media.”
But with young voters already souring on Biden over issues like Gaza, some congressional Democrats warn that moving forward with a ban could seriously hurt the president at the ballot box. Besides, even as the White House raises security concerns about TikTok, the Biden campaign is still using the app to reach voters.