With the U.S. Supreme Court set to rule on a law that could force the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok to shut down, there has been fierce debate about whether TikTok is an avatar of free speech in the digital age or a threat to national security. There is also shifting opinion from President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported banning the highly addictive video app from American app stores but now wants to slow things down.
“The opinion that ultimately matters here is the opinion of the Chinese, the people who control this app,” says Peter Schweizer on the latest episode of the Drill Down podcast. And that opinion, Schweizer says, is that TikTok is a valuable weapon in Communist China’s war with the West.
Schweizer’s 2024 bestseller Blood Money revealed the close ties between TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and Chinese intelligence. That revelation stirred Congress to look into the matter, and ultimately resulted in legislation that effectively forces digital apps owned by foreign adversaries to be sold to Americans or be shut down.
Schweizer says the real verdict will come after the Supreme Court’s decision; what will China do after the Court rules? Any sale of TikTok would have to be approved by the Chinese government, as well as by U.S. regulators, he notes. Both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta would like to buy the app, just to kill it. The app has 4.9 billion downloads worldwide.
Schweizer points out that if China refuses to agree to a sale, it is because, as he disclosed in Blood Money, the algorithm used by the app is considered a state secret, not a regular “business” secret. The Chinese government has been quoted calling the app “a modern-day Trojan Horse” and a “key part of their information-driven mental warfare” against the West. The book showed that ByteDance does joint research with Chinese intelligence agencies on how to manipulate people online.
“China has been studying this for years,” he adds.
India recognized the threat posed by TikTok and banned it in that country. This weekend, the U.S. could follow suit, depending on whether the Court approves the ban.
TikTok was already on the radar of social media critics when Blood Money debuted in Feb. of 2024. The book documented the close coordination between ByteDance, Chinese intelligence, and the CCP. Shortly afterward, Schweizer and other GAI researchers met with members of the House Select Committee and various senators to share details of the research they had done on TikTok. Two months later, Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a law requiring divestment of TikTok to an American company, which set the stage for this week’s court battle.
“It’s funny that the fate of TikTok, which is for teenagers, will be decided by the Supreme Court, which has a median age of about 70, and a U.S. president-elect who is 78,” quips co-host Eric Eggers.
“Trump now appears to want a delay,” Schweizer noted, “probably because what he really wants is to use a possible ban as leverage in dealing with China on other matters such as fentanyl and tariffs.”
The hosts also consider what kinds of whack-a-mole games might happen if TikTok is banned. Already, media reports on the growth of a similar, Chinese app called “Little Red Book” have appeared. Will this set off an endless “ban-the-app” game?
“China will have to decide to sell the app or let it die,” Schweizer says. “So, if they don’t agree to sell it, it means China would rather let it die than give up the algorithm that makes it go.”
The power of that algorithm as an influencer on young minds is obvious when comparing TikTok’s curation of silly dance videos with the science experiments and Chines literature discussions available on its China-only version, known as Douyin. “Douyin is celery and carrots. TikTok is a big bag of doughnuts,” Eggers says.
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