As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to reenter the Oval Office, following a historic victory and a series of strong foreign policy appointments, his agenda includes an unusual surprise: “save TikTok.” The popular video-based social media platform currently faces the prospect of a ban in the United States.
Whether the new administration can deliver on this promise may become complicated.
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In April, outgoing President Joe Biden signed a bill that set a deadline for banning the social media giant if its parent company, ByteDance, fails to divest the platform to a non-foreign adversary entity by mid-January. The bipartisan legislation passed after both the intelligence community and the Department of Justice expressed serious concern that TikTok’s management is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party’s interests. As Trump seeks to counter China and secure our country, his administration should preserve the existing strategy and trust the American free market to fill the void left by TikTok.
The threat of the app, which many associate with innocent skits and dancing videos, should not be underestimated. With over 136 million American users, TikTok holds outsize influence over public opinion. The shift of Generation Z sentiment on the Israel-Gaza conflict best evidences the app’s tangible impact. TikTok enabled anti-Israeli, Hamas-sympathetic content following the Oct. 7 attacks and distorted young people’s views of the conflict. Previously, TikTok had suppressed content bringing awareness to China’s mass internment camps for Uyghur Muslims as well as a documentary expose on the imprisonment of pro-democracy Hong Kong politician Jimmy Lai.
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TikTok’s complex algorithm has contributed significantly to its popularity, allowing users to quickly reach broad audiences and scale online businesses. However, this algorithm also gives ByteDance access to Americans’ online data, including personal information, approximate location, and IP addresses. This data access extends further for TikTok vendor companies and paid influencers, compromising their Social Security numbers, banking information, and more.
Unlike domestic social media platforms, ByteDance operates under Chinese laws that require data sharing with the government upon request. While all social platforms collect user data, ByteDance’s corporate governance structure creates unique vulnerabilities. CCP members sit on internal committees and can influence company decisions. This differs fundamentally from U.S. companies, which can challenge government data requests in court. Current U.S. privacy laws and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reviews haven’t adequately addressed these structural risks.
The gravity of these concerns isn’t theoretical. India implemented a TikTok ban in 2020 after identifying similar national security risks. The European Union has taken a different approach, imposing strict data localization and algorithm transparency requirements. However, these half-measures may fall short of addressing core security concerns, given China’s history of accessing private-sector data despite corporate safeguards. In turn, U.S. lawmakers opted instead to offer ByteDance an ultimatum.
FBI Director Christopher Wray articulated the gravity of the situation in a Senate hearing, stating, “The key point is that the parent company is, for all intents and purposes, beholden to the CCP.” Warping the reality of Hamas terrorism and Beijing’s political imprisonment of Uyghurs and Lai should be proof enough that TikTok is not an independent, private-sector platform. Imposing restrictions on TikTok’s operations through this divest-or-ban model mitigates risks associated with the platform’s data collection practices and safeguards the sensitive information of American citizens.
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The new administration ought to protect against CCP propaganda, digital manipulation, and data risks. This may include the incoming fresh faces at the State Department pursuing a national media campaign, led by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, to bolster media literacy and empower individual choice to address concerns with internet use. Partnerships with educational institutions, media organizations, American-owned social media companies, and political organizations could carefully articulate these security threats to the public and enhance our security against the CCP.
The clock is ticking for ByteDance’s divestment. Let it run out.
Sam Raus, a recent graduate of the University of Miami, is a tech and consumer freedom fellow with Young Voices. Follow him on X @SamRaus1.