Were it not for the fierce competition from TikTok, many social media platforms in the US would be complacent about their outdated business models. In order to compete with TikTok, Instagram has added the tool “Reels” to allow users to share short videos with sound. Like TikTok, the short videos aim at bringing happiness to Instagram’s users.
The following discussion focuses on the recent decision by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) to give ByteDance an ultimatum to sell its TikTok business in the US or face a ban in the country. Will the controversial decision face a challenge in the court?
Because TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy, TikTok represents happiness of the users and happiness for the users. For some small businesses in the US, TikTok represents a creative and effective platform to promote their products.
Another creative way to help small businesses is to integrate e-commerce into the platform of TikTok. It is selling tools that make available shopping events or even ways to display products during a livestream. In each sale, TikTok profits from a commission.
Talented creators are motivated to create short videos with high entertainment value for TikTok users. TikTok deserves great credit for creating the TikTok Coins Awards to incentivize these creators. The awards allow users to support their favorite creators and help creators monetize their attractive content.
To receive these coins, the TikTokers have to exchange them for real money through the app, and then TikTok charges a commission. It’s a win-win business model for creators, users and TikTok. Some celebrities are active users because they want to use their updated daily activities to attract more followers.
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As a testament to its successful business model, TikTok is available in 150 countries worldwide and in 75 languages. In 2021, TikTok had 1 billion monthly active users.
In the past three years, TikTok has been completely stuck in the American political mud because of Washington’s hysterical “national security concerns”. Back in 2020, the Trump administration put pressure on the parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok to an American company. The forced-sale proposal was made under the excuse of national security.
It’s noteworthy that many young TikTokers are strongly against the clampdown on TikTok, and may provoke legal challenges to the ban. Besides, some small businesses in the US have relied on TikTok’s advertising tools to promote their products
When TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi was being grilled for more than five hours by US congresspeople last month, he made it clear that TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, American data with the Chinese government.
He further added that TikTok would not honor such a request if one were ever made. As geopolitics against China grows, many US congresspeople accused TikTok of being a “Trojan horse”. A bill in the US Senate to enable a ban on TikTik has bipartisan support. It is called the RESTRICT Act.
The supporters of the act are on pins and needles partly because of the growing popularity of TikTok among American teenagers and partly because of the lack of algorithmic accountability in regulating a social media platform that surfaces content almost exclusively through algorithms.
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While Facebook chooses videos based on users’ “likes”, TikTok’s algorithm just chooses millions and millions of videos for users (Daniel Pereira, TikTok Business Model, The Business Model Analyst).
Finally, on March 15, CFIUS gave TikTok a politically oriented ultimatum: Sell or face a ban in the US. Under Executive Order 14083, CFIUS shall consider a list of factors when reviewing transactions for national security risks.
The aim is to safeguard national security by screening out any transactions that pose a threat to the national security of the US.
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, like the US, like to see the perceived “national security threat” from TikTok through a hallucinatory lens. These five countries have banned TikTok from government devices.
France, Belgium and the European Commission have announced similar bans. Japan has also banned TikTok on government computers, tablets and mobile phones that handle confidential information. Suffering from strategic delirium, these countries have made a wrong assumption that TikTok is an intelligence agency of China.
To allay the worries of the US government, TikTok has made a proposal, known as Project Texas, to store data belonging to US users on server computers run by Oracle inside the US. But the proposal was ignored by the US government.
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Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has made it clear that China has never and will not require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located in a foreign country, in a way that violates local law. Mao’s clarification fell on deaf ears in the US amid a general Sinophobic paranoia among its politicians.
It’s noteworthy that many young TikTokers are strongly against the clampdown on TikTok, and may provoke legal challenges to the ban. Besides, some small businesses in the US have relied on TikTok’s advertising tools to promote their products.
Some famous tools are Takeover, Hashtag and Effects. In addition to threatening the interests of loyal TikTokers and small businesses in the US, the ban may jeopardize the First Amendment of the American Constitution.
The reaction to the perceived “threat” posed by TikTok needs to be reasonably measured and consistent with American values of freedom and the rule of law. As David McCabe and Cecilia Kang have pointed out, any effort to ban the app or force its sale could face a legal challenge.
They remind us that federal courts ultimately ruled against Donald Trump’s attempt to block the app from appearing in Apple’s and Google’s respective app stores (US Pushes for TikTok Sale to Resolve National Security Concerns, New York Times, March 15, 2023).
Junius Ho is a Legislative Council member and a solicitor.
Kacee Ting Wong is a barrister, part-time researcher of the Shenzhen University Hong Kong and Macao Basic Law Research Center, and chairman of the Chinese Dream Think Tank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.