The story of TikTok, which is arguably almost over, offers many lessons for policymakers. The electorate does the teaching.
Americans have shown that they won’t take national security threats at face value. They want the details. Lawmakers reportedly gathered for a top-secret briefing on the risks posed by TikTok before voting in favor of the bill back in March. At the time, the protestors outside Capitol Hill who opposed the ban were not made privy to its findings.
Confidentiality has consequences. This week we saw that Americans are willing to directly snub lawmakers’ rhetoric about Chinese risk by migrating from U. S. -based and operated TikTok to the U. S. -based and operated TikTok. In the US, to the fully Chinese-run lifestyle app, Xiaohongshu (known in the US). (as “Red Note”).
Lawmakers may also be assessing how fed up Americans are with homegrown Big Tech. As a post by user Candacce puts it: “I would rather see language I don’t perceive than use a social media [platform] owned by Mark Zuckerberg. ” »
Hypocrisy may also have played a role in U.S. users’ decision not to fill the TikTok gap with domestic apps. Many have made the astute argument that Americans would be much better served by a data privacy law than a TikTok ban. Congressional support for the latter without the former is understandably read as insincere—many might deduce that the government cares enough to make their data inaccessible to its geopolitical rival, but domestic firms can have at it. Boycotting Meta is one way to get even.
If enacted, data protections could extend beyond social media and into the U.S. drone market, an area lawmakers are also keen to restrict Chinese firms’ access to. The Commerce Department is considering a rule that would ban Chinese drones (industry comments are due on March 4).
In a way, the proposed drone rule is at least more consistent in its logic than the TikTok ban, because it targets all drones of Chinese origin rather than one company. Since China’s DJI dominates the U.S. drone market, legislation that targets one firm is plausible; in fact, a bill that does just that was introduced by Rep. Elise Stefanik in April and is currently under consideration.
Now, some lawmakers are backtracking, arguing TikTok needs more time to find a buyer. Their change of heart reflects the inconvenient practical obstacles to suddenly cutting off access to a popular platform. While not as powerful a constituency as the 170 million U.S.-based TikTok users, the American drone community is similarly enthusiastic and broadly united in the assessment that there is no comparable alternative to DJI for the consumer market. Even the New York Times’ Wirecutter recommends DJI.
The current and potential chaos of these actions are just part of why firm-based and nationality-based bans miss the point. Rather than committing to bounded action against Chinese drones, for example, lawmakers have a responsibility to offer Americans protections fit for today’s much broader technological reality. Data protection laws, which exist in the European Union and, somewhat ironically, China, are an imperfect but necessary starting point.
If lawmakers continue to shove underlying issues aside in favor of politically expedient anti-China bans, then they will keep failing to convince the public they are acting in its best interests.
Case in point: Reports suggest that TikTok users moved to Xiaohongshu basically out of malice. Their presence there will likely be short-lived, but it obviously shows how many Americans—those living outdoors in the fierce anti-China bubble in Washington, D. C. —resent the government’s choice to prioritize its festival with China over their rights as consumers.
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