By Tom Fowdy
Over the past week, US President Donald Trump has proclaimed that a deal regarding the future of the Chinese social media application TikTok has been effectively sealed.
The deal comes amidst the White Houses' active attempt to save the app in lieu of a Biden era law passed through congress that called for its divestment, or to face a ban, with a supreme court challenge against it failing. To Trump's credit, he has never supported such a law, primarily because he saw gains for himself in utilising it.
Although details on the proposed deal are scant, what is publicly known is that the holding company Bytedance will sell 80% of its US operations to Oracle, who will subsequently control its data and yes, rewrite the algorithm. Still, Bytedance will continue to profit commercially from the venture's revenue. Despite the fact this is an agreement at effective legal gunpoint, this is about as fair an agreement one can get which respects the fundamental interests of all parties involved. First of all, let us be fundamentally honest that China is the inventor of what we might describe as "internet sovereignty," the idea that a state has a right of sovereignty over the internet inside its own country. On pursuing "internet sovereignty," China has subsequently required all western social media platforms comply with its laws or face restriction. Thus, many US based Silicon Valley firms who are not willing to do so, are not eligible to access the Chinese market.
Therefore, regarding TikTok, advocates of a ban have pointed out that if China can exercise "internet sovereignty," why can't the United States? America has effectively utilised the same concept to argue that it has the right to control TikTok within its own borders, thus it must live up to US terms and conditions, or face a ban. While of course this premise does not ethically justify an attempt to coercively steal the entire product, the deal on the table does not do that. Instead, it is designed to cede control of the politically sensitive aspects of TikTok's operations in the US to domestic operators, while still ultimately respecting Bytedance's role as the owner and creator.
This is all things considered worthy of some respect, especially given the creator of the law in question, Representative Mike Gallagher, was an unhinged Anti-China extremist. The fact people of his kind have faltered in influence recently is ironically a hallmark to the current (but perhaps never permanent) détente in US-China relations clearly engineered by Trump himself. Of course, this does not mean the true motivations behind "saving" TikTok should not be drawn to light or scrutinised. Trump's agenda in salvaging the app and arranging this deal is not driven by amicability to China, yet nor is it hostility at the same time. Instead, bringing the political aspects of the application under US control serves an obvious domestic agenda.
First, the US is clearly unhappy that TikTok has been utilised to proliferate criticism of Israel's war in Gaza on an industrial scale without any kind of scrutiny or oversight whatsoever. Trump's domestic political agenda is to suppress scrutiny of Israel in a way which can be reasonably described as authoritarian: This includes use of deportations, visa revocations and denial of entry against any critics. We should expect TikTok, like Twitter did with Elon Musk, to take a dramatic right-wing turn and obviously become favourable to Zionist views. The CEO of this new holding company, Oracle, Larry Ellison, is a huge supporter of Israel, to put it dramatically. The concept of internet sovereignty holds that a country who exercises such rights will naturally want to sway online discourse in a manner favourable to its domestic and political interests. China has done this; Trump will emulate the idea.
Secondly, beyond Israel, Trump will obviously now the reprogramming of the platform to more aggressively push his own domestic agenda. Trump himself has always been a fan of having social media platforms which are favourable to him personally, having once been platformed on Facebook and Twitter. This is why he created truth social as his own mouthpiece, and why he did not return to X until Elon Musk clearly made conditions favourable for him to do so. Trump has saw potential in TikTok, showing his pragmatism and business instinct beyond the NeoConservative zealotry of Biden. Thus, he has ensured its survival.
Despite that, the outcome we have now with TikTok is arguably the least bad choice and the fairest outcome possible all circumstances considered. We live in a new geopolitical era whereby the principle of national sovereignty has become a pressing matter on all sides. Principles first advocated by China have now become widespread, but that means it also falls upon Beijing to accept reciprocity. The United States demanded a stake in what was happening in the world's most popular social media application for it to operate on their own soil. While the idea of demanding the entire app be sold to the US was nothing less than robbery, the ultimate outcome is arguably pragmatic and the worst case scenario has been avoided. TikTok lives on, although its messaging in America might soon attract controversy for an entirely new range of reasons…
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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