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Hello and welcome back to i‘s science and tech newsletter. Our series of guest newsletters that try to untangle big issues affecting the twinned worlds of science and technology.
This week, we’re looking at TikTok. The app’s future looks on shakier ground than ever after US senators voted 79-18 in favour of compelling the app to sell up to an American-based company or face being banned in the United States.
The Senate vote last night followed a similar vote in the House of Representatives, the other legislative branch of the United States, on Saturday which passed by 360 votes to 58. However, that vote was notable for bundling the mooted TikTok ban with a package of foreign aid destined for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan – making it unlikely that it was ever going to be voted down.
The decision to co-opt a vote on crucial national support for US allies in order to pass what effectively amounts to a ban on TikTok was widely criticised when it happened – not least because the premise behind it, that TikTok is a grave national security threat to the United States, has never been definitively proven with evidence by US authorities.
For those who voted in favour of the ban, the simple fact that TikTok has links to China is enough to try to ban the app. TikTok’s opponents fear that the app is a Chinese deep state plot designed to indoctrinate its users, and that it collects data about those who use it as well as western habits that could prove to be a useful weapon. However, they’ve not yet given proof to back up those fears.
A decisive vote
Last night’s vote could well prove decisive: US president Joe Biden has said he would sign any bill that came before him after being passed by both houses to ban the app. Once the ink is dry on Biden’s signature, TikTok would have around nine months to divest or face an outright ban.
That decision is not welcomed by many who analyse the confluence of big tech and big government. “Banning TikTok would selectively target one platform, and the speech rights of its 170 million users would be collateral damage,” said Kate Ruane, Director of the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Free Expression Project.
Ruane also suggests that TikTok is being singled out for geopolitics, rather than anything decisively proven. “The data security issues for TikTok are the same for other platforms,” she said. “The way to address them is to enact a comprehensive consumer privacy law.”
Reality check time
There are several things worth pointing out at this point. Yes: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was created in and is still run from China. Yes: that worries some people. But no: no real evidence has yet been produced that shows TikTok is a danger to us.
TikTok is acutely aware of the baggage that comes with its history – and its Chinese links. And it’s arguably done more than most to try and allay those concerns, said Anupam Chander, professor of law at Georgetown University.
“Many people seem to have forgotten the unprecedented controls that TikTok took on through Project Texas,” he said. Project Texas involved giving a US company, approved by the US government, the ability to act as an independent watchdog to the app. It has also guaranteed US user data will be stored within the US. (To allay similar worries in Europe, TikTok has launched a parallel initiative, Project Clover.)
Chander added that US politicians seem hell-bent on trying to micromanage TikTok in the way they wouldn’t other, US-born apps. “Risk will never be zero with any interaction on the internet,” he said. “We need to manage that risk without declaring Chinese firms are unwelcome elsewhere. After all, China could claim foreign surveillance and propaganda concerns to ban an even wider swathe of foreign companies.”
For example, Facebook remains in banned in China and WhatsApp has been pulled from the Apple app store.
The point is that now TikTok has effectively been forced into a fire sale, countries like China could say their own demands to ban western apps are simply echoing the American approach.
Why this matters
That last point is what makes the vote this week so consequential. You might think this is a matter about China and the United States. But it also affects us all.
TikTok was unusual when it became tech’s next big thing in 2020 for a number of reasons. But one of them was that it was arguably the first app to go global that was not created by, and in the vision of, a small section of the United States called Silicon Valley.
For 20 years or more, the rest of the world has been forced to adopt US norms when interacting with the internet. Every time we use Facebook, X or any number of other apps and services, we’re being subliminally channelled into following rules they deem acceptable – which reflect US values.
For the last four years, the tables have been turned. An app not born in the United States was supreme. And while it spoke with an American accent, thanks to vast numbers of local staff, many of whom came from the old guard of tech companies, it wasn’t born and raised in the USA.
Those living outside the United States might have seen that as refreshing. It seems some American lawmakers thought it was not acceptable.
What’s next?
The big unanswered question is what happens now. TikTok isn’t a shrinking violet, and the app is worth a lot of money. The last time they were threatened with a US-wide ban, in 2020, they took the government to court – and the case was dropped as then-president Donald Trump lost the presidential election.
The same would happen here, according to a leaked internal memo first reported by The Information. “At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,” Michael Beckerman, head of public policy for the Americas, told TikTok staff. ““We’ll continue to fight, as this legislation is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans on TikTok.”
Nor is it certain that anyone could buy TikTok even if a legal challenge were to fail. “ByteDance would have up to a year likely to divest TikTok in a forced sale or face a ban the way the legislation is looking,” said Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities.
“If eventually ByteDance goes down the forced sale route we see no chance TikTok would be sold with the algorithm as Beijing and ByteDance would never allow that to happen in our view,” said Ives. “The value of TikTok would dramatically change without the algorithms and makes the ultimate sale or divestiture of TikTok a very complex endeavour.”
One big unanswered question is whether other countries are likely to follow in the US’s footsteps in trying to ban TikTok.
Countries moved in packs to limit access to it by government employees just over a year ago – something TikTok’s head in the UK told the i was motivated by geopolitics rather than any real fear.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said at the time the ban was “a proportionate move based on a specific risk with government devices”, TikTok said it had not been allowed to know where it has supposed issues, and so could not act to change things.
It’s unlikely though that other countries will follow with a ban, because of the precedent it sets – and also TikTok is a rare non-US success story in the world of tech.
Other things I’ve written recently
In case you missed it, my interview with Alex Edmans about the risks of scientific dis- and misinformation in last week’s edition of the newsletter is well worth revisiting. It remains something we all need to be aware of as we analyse the scientific literature.
Science link of the week
This story from Scientific American on how feathers are one of evolution’s cleverest inventions is glorious, and well worth a read. It explores the importance of feathers – and their unique design – by analysis of current birds and fossils of long-dead ones.
