The Daily - The Secret Push That Could Ban TikTok

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

American lawmakers have tried for years to ban TikTok, concerned that the video app’s links to China pose a national security risk.Sapna Maheshwari, a technology reporter for The Times, explains the behind-the-scenes push to rein in TikTok and discusses what a ban could mean for the app’s 170 million users in the United States.Guest: Sapna Maheshwari, who covers TikTok, technology and emerging media companies for The New York Times.Background reading: A tiny group of lawmakers huddled in private about a year ago, aiming to bulletproof a bill that could ban TikTok.The TikTok law faces court challenges, a shortage of qualified buyers and Beijing’s hostility.Love, hate or fear it, TikTok has changed America.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. American lawmakers have tried for years to ban the video app TikTok over concerns that its ties to China pose a national security risk. Last week, they passed a law that might finally do it. Today, my colleague Sapna Maheshwari on the secret effort behind the law and what a ban would mean for the It's Tuesday, April 30th. So Sapna, tell me about this law that just passed that potentially bans the social media app TikTok. We've seen efforts in the past to rein in TikTok, but this one really seems like the most substantial yet. It's a huge deal.

What this law really does is it puts the future of this hugely popular app with 170 million American users into question. TikTok has reshaped the way many people listen to music. It's changed the way we cook. It's made a whole different kind of celebrity. But it's never been able to shake these concerns around the fact that it has really close ties to China. It's owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance.

And lawmakers for years have been worried that the Chinese government could somehow use ByteDance and TikTok to get information on Americans or possibly spread propaganda. President Trump tried to ban it in 2020. The state of Montana tried to ban this app last year. TikTok's largely survived those challenges, but this time it could actually be banned in the United States. So let's talk about this. Why did this effort succeed where the other ones failed? It's an interesting story. The committee will come to order. And it really dates back to this hearing about a year ago that Congress had with Sho Chu, the CEO of TikTok.

Mr. Chu, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security. So members of the committee, thank you for your time. TikTok has repeatedly said that it has addressed these national security concerns and that there's no issue here. And you can hear that when show Chu testified. Let me start by addressing a few misconceptions about ByteDance, of which we are a subsidiary. ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government.

He's saying American investors are behind ByteDance. Now, TikTok itself is not available in mainland China. We're headquartered in Los Angeles and in Singapore. And I myself am Singaporean. I live in Singapore. The bottom line is this. American data stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel.

And we are actually going above and beyond what American technology companies do to keep things safe. And I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. And is Congress convinced by that? Congress is not convinced by that. ByteDance is a Chinese company?

Well, ByteDance owns many businesses that operate in China. Is it or is it not a Chinese company? Congressman, the way we look at it, it was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. No, no, no, I'm not asking how you look at it. Fact, is it a Chinese company or not? For example, Dell is a company...

It was this really fiery five-hour hearing where Republicans and Democrats asked really contentious questions. We do not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government. The question is, are you 100% certain that they cannot use your company to promote such messages? It is our commitment to this committee and all our users that we will

keep this free from any manipulation by any government. If you can't say 100% certain, I take that as a no. There's this underlying sense of distrust around the company and its ties to China. I will remind you that making false or misleading statements to Congress is a federal crime. I understand. Again, you can go on our platform, you will find that content. And it becomes clear through the hearing that across the board, Republicans and Democrats largely feel the same way. Mr. Chu, I got to hand it to you. You've actually done something that in the last three to four years has not happened except for the exception of maybe Vladimir Putin. You have unified Republicans and Democrats.

And they say, let's come up with a law that works where all the other ones have failed and actually make TikTok answer to its Chinese connections once and for all. So tell me about this small group of lawmakers. Who are they? So it starts with Republicans. Among them is Steve Scalise, one of the most powerful Republicans in the House. And a small group sort of works together for a few months. But they realize that in order to really make this law work, they're going to need Democrats. So they end up working through this House committee that's focused on China and competition. And this is where the bulk of the work on this bill takes place. And just to note, this is a really small group. There's less than 20 key players who are working on this. And all throughout, they are keeping this very, very secret.

And why exactly are they keeping it secret? What's the point of that? So this group really wanted to keep this out of the eyes of TikTok, which has a huge lobbying presence in D.C. and has successfully worked to kill bills that targeted TikTok in the past. And what they're really doing is looking at all of the past efforts to either force a sale or a ban of TikTok and trying to work their way through why those plans didn't succeed and what they can do differently. But while the lawmakers are working on this bill, something big happens that kind of changes the politics around it. And that's October 7th. Your social media feeds are unique to you, but could they be shaping how you view the Israel-Gaza war? As the war breaks out and people start getting information about it, a lot of people are getting information about the Israel-Hamas war on TikTok, especially young people.

Social media algorithms seem to be driving some users towards increasingly divisive posts. And there's this big, messy argument spilling out into living rooms and all over the Internet and, of course, on TikTok. And it's getting very heated. For instance, there's this moment in the fall where a bunch of TikTok users start sharing this old manifesto. I read Osama bin Laden's letter to America. It's wild and everyone should read it. Go read a letter to America. It's wild and everyone should read it. Go read a letter to America. Like seriously, go read it.

That was actually written by Osama bin Laden defending the 9-11 attacks and criticizing the United States support of Israel. TikTok users start trying to tie it to the modern day conflict. the modern-day conflict. Reading this letter, it becomes apparent to me that the actions of 9-11 were all just a buildup of our government failing other nations. The way this letter is going viral right now is giving me the greatest sense of relief. Now it's all coming to light because of Palestine.

And there's these accusations that TikTok may be promoting one side of the conflict over the other. And a couple of researchers look at hashtags around Palestine and they say that the data they pulled shows that TikTok is showing way more pro-Palestine videos and not so much for Israel. And this sets off huge alarm bells for this small group of lawmakers. And this sets off huge alarm bells for this small group of lawmakers. But isn't that just a function of the fact that TikTok at this point is the public square in the United States for young people?

I mean, this is what young people were talking about, and this is where they're doing the talking. TikTok has pushed back really forcefully against these accusations. They said that Gallup polls show that young people view Israel differently than older generations. They say that they're not the ones influencing what people post, that the hashtags and the videos are a reflection of the user base and nothing that they're doing to influence. But for lawmakers, this doesn't really make their concerns go away. Instead, this conflict shows them how TikTok could be used to spread propaganda. It made lawmakers feel that, you know, TikTok could be really dangerous when it comes to shaping the views of Americans on foreign policy, on U.S. elections. And what it also does is it provides this driving force to this group that's drafting this bill. And they suddenly see that, you know, this might be a way to bring

more people into their effort. And so heading into November, against this backdrop, they even bring in the White House and the Justice Department to help work on this bill. And with the White House, you know, they want to make sure that this is a bill that the president will support. And they work with the Justice Department to shore up the language in the bill to help defend against court challenges. Because the Justice Department, of course, would be the one that would have to defend the bill, right? That's exactly right. And so they're trying to make it as rock solid as possible

so that they can win in court when TikTok challenges this law. And so March rolls around and they decide that it's time to unveil this bill that they've been working on for close to a year. The battle over TikTok on Capitol Hill is intensifying. This morning, House lawmakers have agreed unanimously to move a bill to a full floor vote. And TikTok is caught completely flat-footed. They didn't see this coming, and this is just what the group wanted. So TikTok has this army of lobbyists that's suddenly scrambling, and they go into damage control mode. They start reaching out to members of Congress. This app is so much more than just an app for dumb TikTok dances.

They fly a group of TikTok stars and small businesses to come to D.C. and lobby on the steps of the Capitol and meet with lawmakers. Standing up here with all these amazing TikTokers behind me is a complete honor. Every single one of them would voice their opinion just like this. This is how we feel. This has to stop. They set up interviews between these TikTok creators, as they're known, and big TV shows and news

programs, and they're doing everything they can to fight against this bill before it goes any further. And then they decide to do something unusual, which is use TikTok itself to try and derail this bill. How exactly do they do that? So days after this bill is announced, a ton of TikTok users get a message when they open the TikTok app that basically says, call Congress and tell them not to ban TikTok.

OK, so like literally this window comes up and says, call Congress, here you go. Exactly. You can enter your zip code and there's a button that appears and you can press it and the call goes straight to your representative. Oh, wow. So offices are quickly overwhelmed by calls. And TikTok sent out this message to users on the same day that a House committee is going in to vote on this bill and whether to move it forward. And so the stunt happens, they go in to vote and they come out and it's 50 to zero in support of the bill. One of the representatives who worked on the bill said that this stunt by TikTok turned a lot of no's into yeses and yeses into quote, hell yeses.

So the whole episode sounds like it actually backfired, right? Like TikTok stunt essentially just confirmed what was the deepest fears of lawmakers about this company, that the app could be used to influence American politics. That's definitely how a lot of lawmakers viewed it. And when this bill is brought to the full house a week later, it passes by an overwhelming majority. And weeks later, it passes in the Senate as part of a broader aid package. And on Wednesday, it's signed into law by President Biden.

But now the question is, what does it mean? Like, how will this actually work? And how will it affect the tens of millions of Americans who use TikTok every day? We'll be right back. We'll be right back. So Sapna, now that Biden has signed this bill, what does it actually mean in practice for TikTok? What does the law do? So the law is really trying to push ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, to sell to a non-Chinese owner. And the company basically has nine months for this sale to happen. There's an option for President Biden to add another three months to that clock.

And if the company doesn't find a buyer or refuses to be sold, it will be banned. And what would a ban actually mean, Sapna? I mean, people would still have the app on their phones, right? So it wouldn't, like, disappear overnight. Yeah, no one's coming to pick up your phone and forcibly delete this thing. What the law says is that app stores and web hosting services wouldn't be allowed to carry TikTok anymore. So basically, it would kind of die a slow death over time where it wouldn't be updated and just kind of peter out. So the bottom line here is that the clock has started on this potential sale, right? They have 12 months to find a buyer. So what are the obstacles here?

I mean, it sounds pretty ferociously complicated. There's a ton of challenges here, and it's a very messy choose-your-own-adventure. So one of the first big questions is who could buy this? ByteDance and TikTok are private. We don't know their financials. But analysts estimate that it will cost tens of billions of dollars. That narrows the buying pool pretty quickly. And a lot of the companies that could afford to buy it, like Meta, the owner of Facebook, or Google, which owns

YouTube, would probably be, you know, kicked out of the sort of running because they are simply too big. Regulators would say, you know, you already own these big apps. You can't possibly add this to your stable. There'd be a monopoly concern there. Exactly. And then there's a lot of questions around how this would work technically. ByteDance and TikTok are very much global organizations. You have the CEO in Singapore. They have huge operations in Ireland. They have this big workforce in the U.S. And of course, they do have engineers in China.

So how do you extract all those things, make it all work? It's a very big international transaction. Right. And then there is the chance that the Chinese government blocks this sale and says, you cannot do this, ByteDance. We will not allow it. So, Sapna, how does that actually work, though, in terms of China? I mean, can China actually just ban the sale of this company? I mean, it is a private company after all, right? Well, here's one way it could work. The Chinese government could block the export of TikTok's

algorithm. And let me explain that in kind of plain English. Please. They could basically block the technology that fuels the TikTok-iness of this app, the recommendations, the magic of it, why you see what you see when you're looking at TikTok. TikTok-iness, is that an adjective? That is now an adjective. Nice. And there's a chance that Beijing could say, hey, you can't export this technology that

is proprietary. And if that happens, that suddenly makes TikTok way, way less valuable. So the Chinese government could let the sale go through potentially, but as a kind of an empty shell, right? The thing that makes TikTok TikTok, the algorithm wouldn't be part of the company. So that probably isn't very appealing for a potential buyer. Exactly. And I mean, the role of the Chinese government here is really interesting. I've talked to experts who say, well, if the Chinese government interferes to try and block a sale of this app, doesn't that underscore and prove all the concerns that have been expressed

by American lawmakers? If you're worried about China being in control of this thing, well, that just confirmed your fears. Exactly. And it's, I mean, it's an interesting thing that ByteDance and TikTok have to grapple with. So bottom line here, selling TikTok is quite complicated and perhaps not even possible for these reasons that you're giving, right? I mean, not least of which because the Chinese government might not allow the algorithm

to leave the country. And that's not something that the U.S. Congress has a lot of control over. So is this law fundamentally just a ban then? That's what TikTok is calling it. Right after this bill was signed into law

on Wednesday. Make no mistake, this is a ban. A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice. TikTok CEO made a TikTok, what else, that explained the company's position. Because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom. He actually argued that TikTok reflects American values. TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard. And that's why so many people have made TikTok part of their daily lives. And he said that this law infringes on the First Amendment free speech rights of Americans who love it and who use it every day. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again. So it's very clear that TikTok plans to challenge this law

in court, and the court fight to follow will determine the fate of TikTok's future in the U.S. So is that First Amendment argument that the TikTok CEO is making here going to work? Nobody wants to put money on that. I mean, the company is really approaching this with the idea that the First Amendment rights of Americans are being infringed on. But if you remember, the government has been working on this law. They've been anticipating those challenges. And they can justify an infringing of First Amendment rights in certain cases, including with national security concerns. And so it'll be up to a judge on whether those concerns pass muster and justify this sale and

even a potential ban of TikTok. Got it. So TikTok will argue free speech, First Amendment, and the government will counter by saying, look, this is about China. This is about America's national security interests. That's right. And the legal experts that I've spoken with say this is a really big and sticky area of the law. And it's a huge case. And they really think that this will go to the Supreme Court, regardless of who wins in kind of the first round of this. So where does that leave the millions of Americans who use TikTok? And many of them, of course, who earn a living on the platform? I mean, it's really uncertain what happens now with the company, and the clock has started

ticking. When I looked at TikTok and looked at videos from users. This is about the impending TikTok ban. And it just triggered me so much, makes my blood boil, and I have to get this out there. There's a lot of shock. The most assist I've had has been here on TikTok. And now they're trying to take it away. This is so stupid.

And anger. You can't ban apps. You can't ban things from people. People are confused. Word on the street is that in the next nine to 12 months, TikTok could be banned. And they're also caught a bit off guard just because there have been these years of efforts to do something about TikTok. People on the app have been hearing about a TikTok ban really since 2020.

Like the government can take away a literal app on our phones and we're supposed to believe we're free? You know, a few TikTokers have said, you know, how can this be the thing that the government is pushing through so quickly? Can we stop funding a genocide? No. Can we get free COVID tests? No. Can we stop killing a genocide? No. Can we get free COVID tests? No. Can we stop killing the planet? No. Can we at least watch videos on an app of people doing fun things and learn about the world around us? No. So there's this sense of distrust and disappointment for many people who love this app.

We got rid of TikTok. You're welcome. Protecting you from China. You know that phone was made in China. And I think there's also this question, too, around what about TikTok makes it so harmful? Even though it has increasingly become a place for news, there's plenty of people who simply use this app for entertainment. And what they're seeing out of Washington just doesn't square with the reality they experience when they pull out their phones. And I wonder, Sapna, I mean, just kind of,

you know, stepping back for a second. Let's say this ban on TikTok succeeds, if it goes through. Would Americans be better off? It depends who you ask. For the users who love TikTok, if it actually disappeared, it would be the government taking away a place where maybe they make money, where they get their entertainment, where they figure out what to read or what to cook next. To free speech advocates, this would be dystopian, unheard of for the government to crack down on an app with such wide usage by Americans. But for the American political class and the national security

establishment, this is a necessary move, one that was years in the making, not something that was just come up with on the fly. And ultimately, it all comes down to China. And this idea that you can't have a social media app like this, a source of news like this, that is even at all at risk of being influenced by the Chinese government and our greatest adversaries. Sapna, thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. Late Monday night, the standoff between pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and the university's administration descended into a full-blown confrontation when students took over a university building. Columbia had given students until 2 p.m. to clear out from an encampment at the center of campus or face suspension.

It appeared to be an effort to remove the encampment without relying on New York City police. Hi, this is Sharon Otterman reporting for the New York Times. A 2 p.m. deadline for protesters to clear out of the encampment at the center of Columbia University has come and gone, and there's still quite a large contingent inside the encampment. But Monday's warning seemed only to galvanize the protesters, several dozen of whom remained in the encampment despite the warning. On Monday night, Columbia announced it had begun to suspend the students.

Then, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, protesters took over Hamilton Hall on campus. The student group that organized the encampment said on social media that Hamilton had been taken over by, quote, an autonomous group of Columbia University members, and that they would remain until the university divested from companies doing business in Israel. Similar escalations broke out on campuses in the West Coast on Monday night. Today's episode was produced by Will Reed, Rochelle Bonja, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Mark George and Liz O'Balin. Contains original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sharon Otterman.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.