TikTok must either be sold or shut down in the USA. This is what a law that has now become legally binding provides for. But the Chinese owners see it differently. They invoke freedom of expression, of all things. Meanwhile, a billionaire is planning to save the platform.
If billionaires stick together, they can achieve a lot, thinks for example the American Frank McCourt, serial entrepreneur and sports and real estate mogul, who has put a group of like-minded people on the TikTok trail. The Chinese social media network, with numerous branches worldwide and a seemingly unmanageable number of activities, has long been under fire from politicians in the USA. While in New York, the east coast center of the TikTok world, and in Los Angeles as the opposite pole on the Pacific, training and further education for TikTok influencers and the owners of live shopping channels on the platform are ongoing as ever, disaster is brewing over the Chinese one company ByteDance together. ByteDance is the parent company behind TikTok with its billions of users around the world.
In March 2024, the political class in Washington celebrated a law that would force ByteDance to sell its platform – or shut it down completely. Even after it became law, the law still had to overcome a number of hurdles, was debated for a long time and was included in a package of laws on foreign aid. At the end of April, President Joe Biden finally signed the law. A large number of complaints and court cases are now likely to follow, and TikTok owner ByteDance in particular wants to challenge it.
The law allows around nine months to complete the sale or closure of the platform, with the possibility of an extension of three months. This would have taken place long before the coming US presidency. The courts could also suspend the deadline for the duration of the proceedings. ByteDance believes its freedom of speech rights under the American Constitution have been violated – this will ultimately require a decision from the highest courts. And that takes time, a lot of time.
Lawmakers, with the approval of both parties in Congress, nevertheless accuse TikTok of collecting American users’ data for the benefit of the Chinese government and thereby harming the United States. 170 million people in the USA use the network, which, with its recommendations and references that are perceived as appropriate, achieves higher approval rates among fans than its domestic competitors such as Instagram, Facebook and X (Twitter).
Around half of the US population is active on the Chinese video platform and quite a few earn their living from it – through live shopping channels, cooking, gaming, fashion, music and sometimes absurd activities such as students stealing school property filming at the same time. Or the trend of a purely virtual currency called “Dabloon”, based on the Spanish doubloon, which can be used for various rewards. A trend always emerges that encourages users to make purchases, which brings new customers to the network.
TikTok is perfect for Hollywood and the American entertainment industry, where show business takes place. “Has there ever been a platform that seemed more American than TikTok, with its democratic chaos, its exhibitionism, its complete lack of boundaries and its wide selection of rip-offs of all kinds?” asks the New York Times, more or less ironically. But seriously – America would miss TikTok, according to the paper, which itself falls under the Communist Party’s ban in China.
On the other side is Frank McCourt (71), real estate magnate and successive owner of football clubs such as Olympique Marseille, long-time owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball club and its stadium. With his “Project Liberty”, he has committed himself to a new culture on the Internet. He also wants to give this to TikTok, should ByteDance, which is unwilling to sell, reconsider its stance. According to McCourt’s idea, TikTok should be a non-profit event and the source code of the platform should be made public, similar to the case with the Firefox Internet browser.
Under the umbrella of Project Liberty, McCourt has brought together a number of wealthy philanthropists, as he says, although so far anonymously. For the time being, McCourt left it open whether they wanted to negotiate directly with ByteDance. In the event of failure in court, the Chinese company would apparently tend to close its US business rather than leave it to any form of competition.
Meanwhile, China is also launching a journalistic counter-offensive. For Beijing, the US law offers a welcome opportunity to accuse Washington of duplicity when it comes to freedom of speech. Beijing calls the US government’s behavior “predator logic” and is using the US’s global promotion of freedom of speech and free world trade to simply turn the tables on the originator. The blocking of numerous Western information services by Beijing is suddenly justified from China’s perspective, if that should count at all – after all, the CCP justifies its isolation with its own high moral standards and intentions to infiltrate the West.
The Chinese Communist Party sees numerous opportunities for propaganda gains on the horizon, especially keeping the numerous new allies along the Chinese “New Silk Road” on board and promoting itself in the countries of Africa and Asia. If successful, the new American law may do something to combat the spread of fake news, say Professors Nick Frisch and Dan Wang from Yale University, but it is still far from ensuring that minors are protected from all kinds of seduction.
In addition, according to the Yale lawyers, China can use numerous other means of influencing the USA – from paid influencers on Instagram to tricksters and deceivers on Facebook. Conclusion of the Yale lawyers: The American government is facing a long legal process, for which a defeat in the end would not “look good” – but a victory would also be a “bitter fruit: the dilution of our values at home, and a propaganda gain for autocrats abroad.”
While Joe Biden himself is currently using TikTok for his presidential campaign, especially to appeal to younger groups of voters, Frank McCourt, the billionaire fighter for a fair and honest Internet, will probably have to be patient for a long time before purchasing and transforming the Chinese network.
The article “If the USA bans TikTok, it would be a “propaganda win for autocrats”” comes from Business Punk.