The Ultimate TikTok Challenge
Can TikTok survive in the United States?
“Beijing Is Ruining TikTok,” complained Michael Schuman for The Atlantic last week.
“Paranoid politicians in Washington, obsessed with the threat from China, would be all too easy to blame,” wrote Schuman. “But the Chinese Communist Party is the true culprit here. The concerns about TikTok ultimately have almost nothing to do with TikTok and just about everything to do with how the authoritarian government in Beijing runs its economy, society, and legal system. From that, ByteDance has no escape.
“The core of the concern about TikTok is the data it collects on American citizens,” he continued. “The fear in Washington is that these data could end up in the hands of the Chinese security state.”
“Nor can ByteDance really alleviate another major concern in Washington: that the platform could be used to spread pro-China propaganda and manipulate American public opinion,” he wrote. “Chinese authorities could lean on ByteDance to act as a tool in its campaign to shape perceptions of China and to promote the Communist Party’s values, ideas, and narratives around the world.”
“TikTok’s managers haven’t helped themselves, either,” noted Schuman. “Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s chief executive officer, tried to pretend that the company wasn’t Chinese — describing it…