Trump was ready to ban TikTok. Now he’s promised to save it. | Editorial

The boost that 78-year-old Donald Trump’s presidential campaign got by using TikTok to reach a younger audience may help the video app dodge one of the few pieces of legislation to receive bipartisan support during the Biden administration: a U.S. ban so long as TikTok is owned by a company based in China.

Here’s yet another example of Trump’s chameleonlike ability to switch sides when it suits him. As president, Trump signed an executive order in 2020 that said TikTok being owned by ByteDance amounted to a “national emergency” that might allow China to access information it could use for blackmail or espionage.

But that was then, and this is now.

The 2024 Trump campaign didn’t decide until earlier this year to use the app, but by Election Day, he had 14 million TikTok followers. “For all those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump,” he said in a monologue posted in September on his own social media site, Truth Social.

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The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act signed in April by President Joe Biden will fine app stores and tech giants such as Apple and Google if they continue to allow their users to download TikTok after Jan. 19. Trump can’t lift the ban, but he may use his executive powers to delay it.

That may not be enough to prevent tech companies from removing the app from their download lists. Former U.S. Justice Department adviser Alan Rozenshtein says that with Trump, it’s a matter of trust. “If he changes his mind, are they retroactively liable? Do they really want to be in that position?” Yeah, trust and Trump have never been synonymous.

Besides, there’s still good reason to fear China’s government may use TikTok data to its advantage as a strategic and commercial adversary of the United States. It’s been proven that TikTok’s internal web browser can track every keystroke made by the app’s users, which means TikTok not only can monitor every other website its users visit, but also collect their passwords and credit card numbers.

Reassurances by ByteDance that it would never share TikTok users’ data with China’s government ring hollow. If China ever decides it wants what ByteDance has, it will get it. Beijing was a better host of the 2022 Olympics, but no one should forget the 2008 Games when China blocked visitors’ internet access to websites such as Amnesty International and Radio Free Asia that were critical of its regime.

There are other concerns about TikTok, as well. Thirteen states suing ByteDance claim it has misled the public about the app’s potential for harming children. Their lawsuits claim the amount of time teenagers, in particular, watch videos, and so-called beauty filters that allow users to dramatically alter their appearance, can reduce a child’s self-esteem and may lead to harmful behavior.

The litigation says children can become addicted to apps like TikTok after as little as 35 minutes of watching fast-paced videos, and that TikTok’s own research suggests “compulsive” use of the app by children could lead to a loss of analytical skills, contextual thinking, empathy, and increased anxiety. Studies cited in the lawsuits also say social media may incentivize mass shootings as a form of “performance crime.”

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Add it all up and there are valid reasons to ban TikTok, but that doesn’t mean a more responsible app shouldn’t replace it.

TikTok is not only used by many brick-and-mortar stores to advertise, but it is also a crucial cog in America’s nascent “creator economy,” where entrepreneurs without storefronts demonstrate and sell their products in videos that reach millions of consumers. The Goldman Sachs banking and securities firm estimates the creator economy is a $250 billion industry that could double by 2027. “Individual people with their own brands and online audiences have emerged as one of the biggest developments of the digital age,” said a Goldman Sachs analysis.

If there are likely contenders to replace TikTok, they have yet to reveal their intentions. That’s understandable with court challenges to the ban still being argued. Some legal scholars say the ban may be unlawful because it appears designed to penalize TikTok rather than focus on broader issues, such as data privacy and algorithmic transparency.

If TikTok avoids being banned, it must better protect its young users. But as long as it remains a Chinese-owned company, it can hardly guarantee it can keep its users’ data safe from government eyes.