An Urban's Rural View

Time's Nearly Up for TikTok

Urban C Lehner
By  Urban C Lehner , Editor Emeritus
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Last April Congress passed a law ordering TikTok to be sold or cease operations by Jan. 19, 2025. A Supreme Court decision on that law looms. (Photo by nordskovmedia.dk, Public Domain)

One of the most interesting American sagas in recent years is nearing a conclusion. By Jan. 19, the highly popular social media platform TikTok must either cease operations or be sold.

TikTok's Chinese owner is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the law requiring this choice. Judging from the questions the justices asked during oral arguments, the court seems likely to uphold the law instead.

The Chinese owner, ByteDance, has opposed selling. With legal alternatives exhausted, though, it might feel it has no choice but to sell. It's said there are potential buyers waiting in the wings.

President-elect Donald Trump, who was initially on the side of shutting TikTok down, now says he would like to save it. He asked the Supreme Court to delay the law so he could try but the court turned him down. Still, it wouldn't be surprising to see him helping broker a sale.

The TikTok story has been curious from the outset. The U.S. believes in freedom of speech for Americans but has not always extended that privilege to foreigners, and especially not to foreigners from adversarial nations. Needless to say, American social-media platforms like Facebook are not allowed to operate in China.

Almost a century ago Congress severely limited the ability of foreigners, even green-card holders, to own more than a minority stake in radio and television stations and networks. Yet TikTok, which claims 170 million American customers, a far bigger audience than that of any American television network, has for several years been allowed to operate freely in the U.S.

Finally, last April, Congress got around to passing the law requiring a sale or a shutdown. That, too, was curious, as I pointed out in a post a few months ago. (https://www.dtnpf.com/…)

For one thing it's unusual, if not unprecedented, for Congress to legislate a company out of existence. For another, Congress acted in defiance of public-opinion polls indicating the law would be unpopular.

Despite the lack of precedent and popular support, it wasn't a close call. The legislation passed the House 360-58 and the Senate 79-18. Large bi-partisan majorities in both houses were worried enough about a popular social platform having a Chinese owner to pass an extraordinary law. Nor was the vote impulsive or hasty; committees in both houses held hearings and heard testimony from experts.

Why after all this did legislators decide TikTok poses a national security risk? Two threats were cited, both exacerbated by the company's subordination to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. One is the platform's ability to collect massive amounts of information on Americans.

The other is the ability to manipulate the content to China's advantage, something critics say TikTok already does and could do more of if tensions with the U.S. heighten.

David French, a conservative New York Times columnist, imagines a tense situation in the Taiwan Strait in which the U.S. military is trying to mobilize and TikTok is carrying messages telling U.S. soldiers and sailors their orders are fake. Prominent TikTok videos accuse the U.S. of warmongering and proclaim Taiwan as much a part of China as Hawaii is of the U.S. (https://www.nytimes.com/…)

"There's no shooting war -- yet -- but the information war is underway, and the People's Republic of China has an immense advantage," French wrote. "If it has the level of control over TikTok that the U.S. government believes, then it has power over the social media feeds of roughly half the American population, and it's going to use that access to sow as much confusion and division as it can."

The argument for letting ByteDance continue to own TikTok combines concerns for First Amendment freedoms with the observation that much of what's on TikTok isn't political. Though the First Amendment may not apply to Chinese nationals, it does protect the more than 100,000 American "influencers" on TikTok, some of whom make their living that way.

The Supreme Court, then, will be weighing national security against freedom of speech. At oral arguments the justices seemed inclined to defer to Congress's assessment of the risks. But surprises are always possible. First Amendment freedoms are at the heart of American liberty.

Given the Jan. 19 deadline, expect a decision any day now. Whichever way the court rules, TikTok might well continue to operate. If the court overturns the law, it will be with a Chinese owner. If the court upholds the law, it will be with an owner that isn't, in French's words, "controlled by a hostile foreign power."

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanize@gmail.com

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