Platform Wars (part 3): TikTok & Geopolitics

If you’re just joining us, check out The Platform Wars (part 1) and (part 2).

Since the last installment of this series, the platform formerly known as Twitter (now X!) has continued to transform. As discussed in part 1, new lock-in features, like required log in, rate limiting free accounts and advertising splits to creators, have created significant hurdles for moving data out of the platform. Additionally, numerous Twitter clones have cropped up, most notably Meta’s Threads. Social media feels chaotic right now. No one is quiet sure where to post anymore.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China, via RT on TikTok

(Part 3): TikTok & Geopolitics

A TikTok ban is inevitable. It may take one year or ten years, but it will happen eventually. Issues like data security and the growing influence of alternative media, will come to a head as superpower competition between the United States and China shapes the 21st century.

With 150 million monthly active users, TikTok is the first major social media platform to arise from outside the US. This opens up new and unique scenarios for potential conflict. The Platform Wars begin as competition between private companies but grows to encompass rivalries between states.

International communication networks (like social media) challenge the Westphalian model of contiguous, geographically defined states. At times, governments and the tech sector may struggle against each other. At other times, they may cooperate. The alignment of these public and private interests will shape the future of governance at home and abroad.

In the case of TikTok, the writing has been on the wall since the very beginning:

Data Security

TikTok collects unprecedented amounts of data. The app is already banned from all government devices in most advanced countries; Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and more.

State level data leaks are not unprecedented. In 2018, Strava, an iPhone fitness tracker app, inadvertently mapped CIA blacksites and disclosed them to the world. Whether malicious or accidental, the process of collecting data will always have unexpected social and political consequences.

While endless articles have been published about TikTok’s extensive data collection, and the potentials for it to be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party, my strong inclination is that that TikTok collects this data merely because it can. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is a private entity that operates for profit and in its own interest. ByteDance shrewdly recognizes that user data is valuable and so they collect as much as possible. The fact that these private interests may align with the Chinese government is coincidental and convenient.

In March of this year, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before congress that none of TikTok’s data was stored in China (the implication being that this would make it accessible by the CCP.) But he now claims otherwise. (There are some slippery regulatory distinctions between user data and creator data, the latter of which is indeed stored in China.) Recently, a former executive at ByteDance alleged that the CCP accessed TikTok user data belonging to Hong Kong protesters and civil rights activists.

In either case, its important to remember that written legal frameworks do not infrastructurally prevent data surveillance and collection. Perhaps the United States’ own NSA stands as the best example here. And with the stroke of a pen, written legal frameworks can quickly be overturned. All governments understand the potential value of data held by private companies within their borders and may attempt to access this data to advance their own interests. Ironically, the nationalist argument to protect American citizens from foreign surveillance, is a tacit admission of our own distrust for the state right here at home: ‘We know the Chinese government will illegally access such data, because the United States already did.’

Alternative Media

Already, there is a sharp ideological divergence between American platforms. For example, posts that intentionally misgender a person will be allowed on conservative-aligned Twitter but would be considered a TOS violation on progressive-aligned Threads. Soon we will see deeper ideological divisions emerge between platforms aligned with different geopolitical blocks.

Russia Today is a US-based news channel that is funded by the Russian state. In 2022, RT News was deplatformed due to many of its channels spreading disinformation and Russian state propaganda. YouTube, FaceBook, and TikTok moved in unison to ban RT News in Europe. But when YouTube chose to ban RT News worldwide, FaceBook and TikTok curiously did not. In fact, you can still watch it right now: RT.news on TikTok. Scrolling over the page, about one out of every ten videos is just a press release from government officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China:

“China comments on TikTok ban in Montana: We have taken note of the relevant reports, and what I would like to say is that this is a patchwork report with a serious lack of chain of evidence and is extremely unprofessional. We also note that government agencies such as the National Security Agency of the United States and relevant agencies of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other countries have also issued similar reports. It is obvious that this is a collective false information action taken by the five-eye countries by the United States for geopolitical purposes.”

Both FaceBook and TikTok now label RT News as “state controlled” media. (More on this later.) This regional asymmetry of TOS is an early indication of the different political pressures applied to major platforms in different geopolitical blocks.

Competing states will always provide a home to media narratives that disparage their competitors. For example, The Epoch Times is banned in China but operates freely within the United States. And this was often the case for radical newspapers before the internet.

Among the many propagandist programs on RT, it also included reputable voices like Chris Hedges. Hedges was previously a journalist at NPR and The New York Times, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. But his critical perspective ultimately drove him to be excluded from American media channels and to find a home on RT.

TikTok recently released its own Twitter clone feature called Text Post. It seems plausible that within the next five years, TikTok could be wholly redesigned to become an everything app (like Twitter or X) and to incorporate long form video. In this case, it might be the only major platform on which to watch Chris Hedges interview Marxist professor David Harvey while inside the United States. It might be the only venue that gives an audience to the labor focused politics that I personally would like to see more of.

Banning TikTok will undoubtedly limit the range of political discourse in America. In the short term, I lament the inevitable TikTok ban. But it’s important to remember that as a network, RT News does not especially care about the class politics Hedges may discuss. RT gives a home to various dissident narratives insofar as they help to destabilize the US political establishment. And while this may include the labor-focused politics that I personally align with, it also means amplifying radicals from across the entire spectrum.

When these same dynamics are applied, not to a publisher like RT, but to a platform like TikTok, the balance of reputable voices to propaganda tips ever more steeply toward the latter. For readers outside the US, this description of foreign platforms as a means to culturally and politically destabilize competitors likely rings true. This is already how American platforms are commonly viewed everywhere else.

The Long Game

For TikTok, the writing has always been on the wall. Big American platforms have known this from the very beginning. US analogs, such as Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, have quietly been a long game for the inevitable TikTok ban. Meta and Google are putting vast amounts of resources into promoting these formats by prioritizing short form video content and offering additional monetary compensation to creators. These vertical video platforms were built to absorb TikTok’s market share pending its future ban.

If data collection is a given in the 21st century, American law makers will consider which scenarios yield the greatest opportunities for security. When Twitter, Meta, or Google cause an injury to the public, they can conceivably be prosecuted through the US legal system (although this would likely take many years of arduous work). In the case of ByteDance, the US will have far less ability for oversight or recourse. Among these dim prospects, American law makers will ultimately choose the slim chance for restitution over no chance at all.

Alternative media is a powerful tool for shaping political consensus. As superpower competition heightens, state influence will increasingly weigh in on platform level decisions at home and abroad. This will result in different ranges of political narratives that can be discussed within different digital spheres. In the interim period, certain platforms will span geopolitical regions and act as an information bridge between the two. Narrative is the oldest and most powerful human technology. It may prove more dangerous than any surveillance tool yet.

Thanks for reading. In the next part of this series I will outline a proposal for a public option for social media.

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notes

In the 21st century, new black swan events, like pandemics and financial crises, will slowly shock the American model of economy and governance into something more similar to the Chinese model. To compete with China’s unparalleled growth rates, our economy will necessarily become more state directed. To subdue political threats, our civil liberties will be more strictly curtailed in online speech and IRL protests. These changes will likely be an economic benefit to many of us. But the erosion of political freedoms represents a decisive end to the familiar model of liberal democracy that has characterized western governance since the post war era. An ideal model would incorporate eastern economic growth with western civil liberties.

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American platforms have been highly compliant with government requests to censor information because they are financially, materially and ideologically rooted within the United States. In general, platforms tend to comply with the legal limits of the different states within which they operate (for example, Twitter’s recent deference to Erdogan in Turkey). While TikTok may likely adhere to US government requests, I do not think it will deter the inevitable ban.

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Labeling RT as Russian “state-controlled” or “state-affiliated” media forces awkward questions. For example, NPR receives public funding in the US. Should it be labeled as “US state-affiliated media” abroad? There is no easy answer. I personally would prefer that all users browse online media with a deep skepticism. In either case, it must be said, that whether through the direct contribution of state resources (in the case of RT), or the indirect subsidy of tax allowances and access (in the US), all major media operates with the general permission of the state.

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I like Daniel Bessner’s perspective from

American Prestige

: Mapping US-style imperial ambitions onto China does not correspond their actions in the real world. But in this case, I think US lawmakers will continue to view TikTok through an American ideological lens and ban it anyway. The most extreme cyber-security concerns issued by the US state are a tacit admission of how the US sees American platforms elsewhere.