TikTok before the U.S. Congress: a matter of digital geopolitics

^{Image: Design from the interpretation of the prompt "A mobile phone with an eye on camera, Congress building at background" made by DreamStudio.}

A few weeks ago, Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok, joined the long tradition of social media executives taking to the board before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. As on other occasions, the audience left memes and jibes about the congressmen's limited knowledge of the Internet and social networking. But unlike before, this time the geopolitical overtones of the case open up the real possibility that TikTok faces an existential threat.

For five hours, Chew faced all kinds of questions from the representatives. The range included issues that the platform has been accused of in recent years: its impact on the mental health of younger audiences, the relationship of Bytedance - its parent company - with the Chinese government, the use of the app to spy on citizens in the United States, the dissemination of pro-Chinese propaganda on the platform, and the handling of users' private information.

The hearing was convened in mid-March, shortly after Joe Biden's administration put the company in two difficult scenarios: either Bytedance would sell its stake in TikTok or the application would be blocked in the United States. The concerns of the authorities in that country regarding this platform are not new. During his term in office, Donald Trump also sought to ban it, but a federal court stopped his aspirations. In December, under the same premise, Congress established that no phone belonging to a federal government official could have it installed.

To calm the pressures, last year TikTok began developing Project Texas, a $1.5 billion initiative to store all of its U.S. user data on Oracle servers in Texas. The project, which is presented as a solution and a barrier in case China tries to access this data, also provides for a government-approved committee to monitor its operations.

At the House hearing, Chew raised Project Texas as a catch-all for many of his answers, presenting it as a transparency solution to concerns about privacy and the company's independence from the Beijing government. Despite his insistence, the project failed to dissolve the skepticism of many of the congressmen, who at the same hearing considered it a marketing ploy or an insufficient measure.

For Yoel Roth, former director of public policy at Twitter and now a research associate at the University of Berkeley, the project is based on a mistaken premise: that geographical limits can be imposed on a problem that does not respect geography. Furthermore, Roth suggests that a proposal such as Project Texas is only useful if the aim is to avoid blocking the application, but its collateral effects could be very harmful for the company, since the implementation of this territorial segregation of data would present an obstacle for TikTok teams to access the information necessary to find and disrupt inauthentic behavior on the platform.

On the same day that Chew appeared on Capitol Hill in Washington, the Chinese government assured that it would strongly oppose a forced sale by Bytedance and argued that such a move could affect its country's investments in the United States. Given the response, Biden faces a scenario in which he would have to take on a trade dispute with China as part of his dispute against TikTok. Either way, meeting his ultimatum and banning the app would require congressional backing.

In the midst of the sets are 150 million people who use TikTok in the United States and five million businesses that depend on this social network, according to company spokespersons. The importance of the discussion, which also has in the background a debate on the authority of a government to shut down a means of communication used by about half of its population, has also mobilized content creators. With expenses covered by the company, dozens of influencers showed up in Washington on the day of the hearing to protest and lobby against a possible ban of this social network where they have built audiences of millions of people.

According to Justin Hendrix, editor of Tech Policy Press, Congress has done its part to make the concerns about TikTok go this far. After years of scandals and proven malpractices by big tech companies, congressmen have been unable to pass legislation that would effectively put a stop to abuses and protect citizens' data.

Along those same lines, Willmary Escoto, an analyst with the organization AccessNow, suggests that TikTok has done nothing more than emulate the same actions as Silicon Valley companies and with the same level of opacity. "Instead of the superficial solution of banning a problematic platform, the government should prioritize enacting a federal data protection law that addresses the real problem: how companies collect and monetize our information," Escoto says.

A split between TikTok and Bytedance would not solve the issue of privacy and influence operations, as the conditions for the social media to operate will remain the same, as Chew himself stated before Congress. Moreover, a restriction on TikTok or a spin-off from its parent company will not eliminate in one fell swoop the global data marketplace, where location information, search and purchase histories are stored by all apps and which the government of China - or any country - could get without being tied to a particular platform.

Again, the substance of the discussion seems to lie in the company's origins, rather than its practices. But as Hendrix made clear: "TikTok is not a product of Chinese communism, but of American surveillance capitalism."

The U.S. decision on TikTok could have global effects. In the few months since Congress banned the app on the phones of federal officials, the European Union and countries such as the United Kingdom, Belgium and France have emulated the measure.

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