
The battle for TikTok is a fight for control of public opinion, not national security
Summary
- Facebook and other social media apps pose similar data privacy and national security threats as TikTok. So why has India banned only TikTok and not Meta's platforms?
Among the galaxy of “tech bros" at Donald Trump’s swearing-in was one particular CEO with more than a passing interest in his Presidency—Shou Zi Chew, chief of the embattled video-sharing platform TikTok.
Chew’s presence was understandable. Among the blizzard of executive orders Trump signed soon after taking office on 20 January was a vital lifeline to TikTok.
The US Supreme Court had upheld a law effectively banning the app unless TikTok could sell itself to US investors before 18 January. When that did not happen, TikTok went dark for its more than 170 million users in America. As Trump took office the following day, he signed an executive order halting the ban for 75 days.
Trump has said his administration will use the window to determine the “appropriate course of action with respect to TikTok". That now appears to be a sale to a US entity controlled at least 50% by American investors. Trump has threatened that any attempt by China, the home of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, to block such a deal will considered a hostile act and invite retaliatory tariffs ranging up to 100%.
All this drama has obscured the more fundamental questions raised by the US attempt to control TikTok. US lawmakers passed a law to ban the app ostensibly because they were unsure of the kind of personal data on US users that ByteDance was collecting. They also feared that China would use such information to further its interests—in other words, a national security threat.
Also read | Trump gives TikTok an illegal amnesty
The Indian government advanced a similar reasoning when it banned TikTok in 2020. Indian authorities were more worried about the potential threat to national security than about personal data protection, rules for which are still in the draft stage.
All the criticisms of TikTok—that it is a privacy dark hole, that it has no content moderation, that it is full of misinformation and conspiracy theories, and that it provides a powerful platform for hate groups—are all valid.
However, these criticisms are equally valid for other social media apps. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, now renamed X, he ended most of its content regulation and reactivated banned right-wing handles. Meta recently decided to end third-party content moderation on Facebook. These platforms are all just as packed with misinformation, disinformation, and hate as TikTok.
All the other things said to be wrong with TikTok—lack of regulation, opacity of its recommender algorithms that lead users down content echo chambers, and its rampant collection of sensitive private information of users—are equally true for other social media apps.
The crucial difference is that X and Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, are American companies. TikTok is not.
Also read | Meta going down Twitter’s path won’t end the same way
Choosing between the Dragon and the Eagle
If privacy were the US’ main issue with TikTok, ByteDance’s proposed solution—to pass the data shared with TikTok’s parent in China through a company jointly owned with US-based Oracle and to give US regulators a ‘kill switch’—would have worked just as well.
The real issue is TikTok’s almost frightening power to mould public opinion—which Meta enjoys in perhaps bigger measure in India.
This also sheds light on India’s response to TikTok. Yes, China is an inimical state and, therefore, Chinese companies, which are more vulnerable to government pressure in their home country, are problematic. But to assume that when it comes to the crunch, American tech giants will place India’s interests above theirs and the US government’s interests is fanciful. Why then ban Chinese apps and not the others?
Also read | India’s digital personal data protection Act and its roadblocks
The short answer is that India cannot. It could ban TikTok because China was unlikely to risk its more than $101 billion of exports to India over a social media app. But the Indian government has little agency over US tech giants. India also lacks the economic and military might of the US, which empowers the US to impose its will on other nations.
But India has the power to make and enforce regulations that can protect its national interests—and those of its citizens—to some degree. This is where India’s belated attempts to enact data privacy rules leave much to be desired. By requiring “verifiable consent", regulators are simply kicking the can to the players and users. India insists on data localisation but that alone is not enough to ensure control.
Without the ability to take on US tech giants with home-grown technology, India’s only options are to decide whether to live under US or Chinese technological imperialism.
Also read | Were you hacked in 2024? India’s data protection rules require you to take action