But President Xi Jinping likely won’t see a moderate concession on tariffs as a win.
TikTok doesn’t even operate in China, so Xi isn’t under any pressure to please American users. And state-backed media have been clear that China views this as a precedent-setting saga that could leave other companies open to US “plunder”.
TRUMP HAS DELEGITIMISED NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
Earlier, the key question was: “What will it take for Beijing to let TikTok go?” Now, we also need to worry about what it will take for Trump to let it go.
And by obfuscating the national security concerns to advance his tariff agenda, he has delegitimised them.
While all the last-minute buyer drama spurred intrigue, it’s worth questioning if any of this will fulfil the goal of keeping American social media users safe.
A scenario where ByteDance maintains control over the algorithm may ease some data collection and spying concerns, but seems to bring us back to where we started over fears of algorithm infiltration. And punting the deadline further doesn’t address those issues, either.
While ByteDance has been mum on the TikTok drama, its Chinese sister app, Douyin, has been in the news at home after local regulators forced the company to offer the public much more clarity on how the app recommends and moderates content. In a recently launched website, Douyin says that it does not spy on users and offered more transparency into how its algorithm tracks behaviour to serve content.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/tiktok-ban-us-china-deadline-buyers-tariffs-5044431
