Letter to the Editor

A response to “Don’t Blame ByteDance,” published 4/14/2023

Last month, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, forcing Chinese corporation ByteDance to either sell TikTok to a U.S.-approved company or to have it be taken off app stores in the United States. This motion, however, is nothing new. In his article “Don’t Blame ByteDance,” Michael Meng ’26 addressed Congress’ 2023 efforts to ban the wildly popular social media platform on government devices. Although nearly a year has passed since that incident, many of Meng’s assertions remain valid. The concerns that fuel the bill—data privacy violations and disinformation—are not unique to TikTok, and banning TikTok would not effectively solve the problem.

Many legislators worry about TikTok’s ability to shape the beliefs of and mobilize its U.S. users. Indeed, as the bill made its way through the House of Representatives and now the Senate, TikTok sent push notifications to its users urging them to voice their objections to their representatives. Government offices across the country were flooded with calls from loyal TikTok users, demonstrating the platform’s unquestionable influence over American citizens. TikTok’s affiliation with China also subjects the company to Chinese laws and requirements, making it powerless to resist or decline if the Chinese government demanded Byte Dance turn over the data of U.S. users. 

The bill aims to protect data privacy and prevent China from accessing user data. However, it fails to address the root of the problem, placing unnecessary emphasis on China rather than on the inherent ills of social media. Even if the bill is put into action and TikTok is either sold or banned, all online platforms—hardly just TikTok—still access and gather user data. Lawmakers should turn their focus to creating and enforcing regulations on the collection and exchange of data. Forcing ByteDance alone to give up ownership of TikTok serves less as an attempt to ensure user data privacy than an unfounded attempt to politicize and attack the platform’s affiliations.

The content that TikTok’s algorithm feeds its users also raised concerns among politicians. Lawmakers claim that China could harness the algorithm to promote communist ideas, influence U.S. politics, and brainwash users with extreme viewpoints. However, the bill does not solve the fundamental problem—algorithms are designed to reinforce people’s viewpoints, creating an “echo-chamber” effect. A change in ownership cannot effectively solve the influence of misinformation on users. Congress would find more success by changing social media itself—restructuring how algorithms suggest content or raising the minimum age to create social media accounts, for example.

Finally, there’s the question of what ByteDance and China’s reaction will be if this bill becomes a reality. TikTok has already fought back vigorously, evidenced by its call to users to voice their positions against the bill. ByteDance is similarly unwilling to give up such a lucrative platform and, either way, China will likely not allow ByteDance to surrender  the app. As a result, it is probable that TikTok will be removed from U.S. app stores, affecting millions of users who rely on and profit from the app, and marking an escalation in tensions between the U.S. and China. While concerns about data privacy and featured content are valid, we must ask ourselves: is a Tiktok Ban truly the most effective, efficient way of addressing our concerns?