Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
TikTok Goes Dark in US
The social media platform TikTok has 170 million users in the US, and last night, every single one of them lost access to the platform. The US Supreme Court heard arguments to overturn an Act of Congress that called for a ban of TikTok unless its Chinese owners divested themselves of their stake. The court refused on a 9-0 vote to do anything about it. The ban took effect at midnight as Saturday January 18 became January 19. The platform turned off America access around 11:30 Eastern time. Tomorrow, it may well be back with an executive order allowing it to operate for another 90 days while the relevant parties figure something out. This is all kabuki theatre to make Mr. Trump look good to TikTok users.
This issue is not a new one. Two years ago, the Associate Press explained:
TikTok, which has over 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., which appoints its executives.
ByteDance is based in Beijing but registered in the Cayman Islands, as is common for privately owned Chinese companies. Its headquarters is in Beijing’s northwestern Haidian district, home to key universities and a hub for tech startups. TikTok has dual headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles.
Western governments worry Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over TikTok data on American users, exposing sensitive information. Foreign Ministry pokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday that China’s government has never and will not ask companies to "collect or provide data, information or intelligence" held in foreign countries, adding the U.S. "has not provided any evidence so far to prove that TikTok threatens U.S. national security."
ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan’s SoftBank Group. Employees own 20% and its founders the remaining 20%.
Now whether Ms. Mao was telling the truth or not is largely irrelevant. This journal trusts no government to forego collection of data that said government might want for national security or economic purposes. Indeed, it would be irresponsible of such a government.
The argument over the ban, however, misses what is the Trump team is going to do. The ban was almost a certainty, and both Team Trump and the ByteDance leadership knew it. If the Supreme Court overturned the ban, nothing would be done. Mr. Trump would make a speech that ambles here, there and everywhere in which he would say he is looking at other options and that he would make a major policy statement in the next couple of weeks. That is his code for doing nothing specific and hoping the problem goes away.
However, that is not what happened, and a different approach will be taken. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chen (a Singapore national, not a citizen of the PRC) will be with the incoming president during the inauguration ceremony. NBC News wrote "TikTok CEO Shou Chew has been invited to and is expected to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday, according to three sources familiar with the matter, two of whom are Trump transition officials.
"Chew was invited by the president-elect's team and will sit on the dais in front of the Capitol where Trump will be sworn in as president."
He will get his executive order inked that afternoon, and he will give Mr. Trump all the credit. TikTokers will be told Mr. Trump came through for them when no one else could. Most will believe it. In propaganda terms, it is a thing of beauty. But no matter how beautiful, it is just propaganda.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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