Responding to a lawsuit from video-sharing platform TikTok, the US Justice Department argued that China could order the company to manipulate TikTok’s algorithm and expand Beijing’s “malign influence.”
The US Justice Department defended a law that aims to either ban TikTok or force it to divest its assets in the US after the social media company filed a lawsuit against the legislation.
Under the law, the social media platform will have to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the US by January 19, 2025.
The Chinese-based TikTok is challenging the law before a US appeals court.
It’s a small amount of protectionism.
I don’t think it’s foreign ownership or hostile intent. The data and influence angle is shaky - any company, including those accountable to hostile foreign governments can buy data. And that data can be put to use running influence campaigns with our without official platform support on pretty much any platform.
But TikTok isn’t beholden to the U.S. They don’t have to adhere to the same sorta of content moderation policies, and they don’t necessarily have to have the same values. If I may be conspiratorial, I think that other social media platforms tweak their algorithms in ways that keep U.S. regulators happy
To me, it’s telling that the U.S. made threats about it until the Gaza war, and that much of the U.S. opposition to it has been engendered through TikTok. It seems once that became apparent, the U.S. set to make good on its threats to shut TikTok down.
I’m not a big TikTok booster, but I sort of think they’re on the receiving end of injustice here - ironically, for being free in the content they show (U.S.) users.