TikTok is not only essentially the most downloaded app on this planet; it’s essentially the most highly effective info platform on the planet.
The app can also be a political flashpoint. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese language firm beneath the shadow of Beijing. For years, US lawmakers have tried to rein it in, both by banning it outright or forcing a sale to American traders. Now, with Donald Trump again in workplace, that combat has entered a brand new section that would reshape the social media panorama. Final week, Trump signed an government order approving the creation of a brand new entity — TikTok US — that might enable the app to stay obtainable in America regardless of the “ban” that Congress handed in 2024. Trump’s allies — Larry Ellison (the CEO of Oracle), Michael Dell (of Dell Applied sciences), and the Murdochs — will reportedly be concerned in working the brand new firm. China nonetheless has to approve the deal.
Emily Baker-White is a senior author at Forbes and the writer of Each Display screen on the Planet: The Conflict Over TikTok. Her reporting uncovered how ByteDance workers accessed American customers’ knowledge and the way TikTok’s inner methods gave the corporate monumental affect over what we see.
I invited Baker-White onto The Grey Space to speak about the newest information within the potential US-China TikTok deal, how Washington and Beijing are taking part in this sport, and why the app has turn into a cultural superpower. As all the time, there’s a lot extra within the full podcast, so hear and comply with The Grey Space on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you discover podcasts. New episodes drop each Monday.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
TikTok isn’t simply one other social platform. Why is it so addictive?
TikTok’s founder, Zhang Yiming, believed info might discover individuals higher than individuals might discover info. On older platforms, you adopted accounts and looked for issues. On TikTok, you open the app and it simply goes. It watches how lengthy you linger, the way you work together, and the expertise is so frictionless that it figures you out whilst you do nothing.
And it’s designed to remove company — it feeds you what you’ll need with out you asking.
Precisely. And it’s sneaky as a result of we prefer it. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t use it. We’re giving up company with out noticing, as a result of the product is nice.
Is a part of the pleasure not having to suppose?
Determination fatigue is actual. You didn’t used to need to do something within the checkout line. You would simply stand there and be an individual ready your flip. Now you possibly can’t simply, you recognize, uncooked canine the checkout line. When did that turn into insupportable? When did we’ve got to be doing one thing in each tiny pause of each day life?
TikTok’s For You feed is a prediction machine primarily based on revealed preferences, not what we are saying we like. How does that change consumer psychology? Which content material thrives, in contrast with Fb/Instagram/X?
TikTok helped lead a broader shift: We now see far much less from individuals we truly know and much more from skilled creators. That’s true on TikTok and, more and more, on Instagram and Fb. It’s as very similar to Netflix as OG Fb — individuals don’t go there to see buddies.
I held out for a very long time however lastly experimented with TikTok for this interview. It’s pure, uncut social media heroin. From the second you go surfing, you possibly can see it studying your thoughts, predicting what you need, and feeding you the proper digital drug designed only for you.
Most individuals who’ve tried it agree — and Instagram Reels is aware of it.
Let’s speak moderation. We’ve mentioned the algorithm; what’s the human function at TikTok?
In the present day it’s much like different massive UGC [user-generated content] platforms. Algorithms flag doubtless violations; giant groups of human moderators implement guidelines and tune these methods. Insurance policies within the US now look broadly like opponents’. Early on, it was completely different — extra “Chinese language” coverage defaults that had been later “Westernized.” One distinctive piece is the interior heating device.
“Bear in mind, you’re making fewer selections about what to see. Which means you’re ceding extra management over your info weight-reduction plan to a faceless machine — and the individuals who construct and govern it.”
The heating button — what’s it?
It lets sure workers give a video a set variety of impressions — 5,000, 50,000, 5 million — overriding the recommender. That preliminary shove usually triggers additional natural development. Early on, many individuals had entry. People used it to show the system what “good” seemed like when the algo was nonetheless tough. Advertising and marketing later used it to woo creators and companions. TikTok ultimately restricted entry and wrote stricter insurance policies, however misuse did occur — and with a device like that, some misuse doubtless persists.
Different platforms enhance and demote content material too. What makes this completely different?
Everybody tunes distribution. What stood out right here was how express, granular, and extensively obtainable the “massive crimson button” was — no less than traditionally. (If people at different platforms have related instruments, my Sign is open.)
How do you see TikTok’s cultural and political drive in contrast with Fb and Twitter?
Fb and Instagram are extra comparable in measurement, and YouTube is big. However TikTok is admittedly, actually massive — on the order of a 2019 or 2020 Fb, if not larger. And bear in mind, you’re making fewer selections about what to see. Which means you’re ceding extra management over your info weight-reduction plan to a faceless machine — and the individuals who construct and govern it.
How a lot management does Beijing have over TikTok? Or is “leverage” the higher phrase?
Leverage. In China, authorities can coerce workers — “do that or else” — together with by threatening household. If a China-based ByteDance/TikTok worker can entry US knowledge or affect rating, the state might compel them. That functionality is the priority. There’s restricted public proof they’ve exercised it extensively — functionality doesn’t equal motion — however the leverage is actual so long as China-based workers exist with related entry.
Is there proof China has used TikTok as an ideological weapon?
Within the US, I’ve seen no public proof of PRC manipulation of discourse through TikTok. Years in the past, TikTok had restrictive insurance policies round China subjects; these modified. There’s categorised materials — referenced obliquely in TikTok’s courtroom filings — that US officers say entails manipulation overseas, however I haven’t seen it.
ByteDance’s reply to America’s ban on TikTok was Venture Texas — walling off US knowledge beneath Oracle. How did that go?
Conceptually, “driver carries no money”: [The US] reduce China-side entry [to Oracle] so coercion can’t yield US knowledge. They spent billions making an attempt to bifurcate. However there are lots of of inner instruments and knowledge pipes; closing each final pathway is Sisyphean. They obtained far, however the “final mile” is difficult to ensure. The US ultimately doubted an answer, in need of full separation, can be foolproof.
What made that technical problem so daunting in observe?
In case you’ve ever labored inside a giant tech firm, you know the way many inner instruments there are and the way a lot they speak to one another. TikTok is propped up by lots of of them. The buyer app you see sits on high of 500 inner apps. Chopping off knowledge flows throughout all of them was a maze-like, Sisyphean process. They closed most pathways, however the final mile was practically not possible.
Stroll me via the coverage saga.
Trump first tried to ban [TikTok], then to drive a sale; he used the flawed authorized mechanism and misplaced in courtroom. Biden’s group negotiated Venture Texas for about 2 years, then pivoted to “promote or be banned,” pushing Congress to move a legislation. ByteDance challenged; the case went to SCOTUS, which upheld the legislation. On the eve of [Trump’s second] inauguration, TikTok briefly “flickered” off; after taking workplace, Trump ordered DOJ to not implement the legislation. TikTok has lived in that purgatory since.
And TikTok publicly thanked Trump for “saving” it.
Fairly a flip from their early “Donald Trump isn’t on TikTok — obtain now” advertisements.
After all of your reporting, how do you’re feeling about TikTok now?
Personally, I hate autoplay video — on any platform. I downloaded TikTok to report on it; cute animals apart, I’m not a pure video shopper. That most likely saved me from dependancy.
You finish the e-book noting Zhang Yiming is already shifting on to AGI (synthetic basic intelligence). That appears…fascinating.
He’s a builder. TikTok’s arduous issues are largely solved; generative AI is the subsequent frontier. The TikTok story isn’t about AI, however the core questions — company, management, who steers your actuality — are the identical.
When you concentrate on an algorithm, change the phrase with a man named Bob. If Bob shouldn’t be fixing costs throughout industries, an algorithm shouldn’t both. If Bob shouldn’t have entry to everybody’s Social Safety numbers, neither ought to an algorithm. Algorithms are made by individuals, for individuals’s pursuits — and once we neglect that, we give them far an excessive amount of energy.
We don’t normally do addendums, however the authorized way forward for TikTok might need modified after we spoke. What do we all know now?
Greater than earlier than, however particulars are skinny. Each the US and Chinese language sides say they’ve made progress. Trump is asking it a deal and prolonged non-enforcement of the ban legislation. Reporting suggests he’ll signal an order declaring the deal meets final yr’s statute — he has vast latitude there. The possible US patrons/overseers embrace Oracle (already TikTok’s cloud/TTP), Andreessen Horowitz, and presumably the Murdochs. Phrases — and who will get what energy — stay unclear.
Are there contours of the deal we do know?
Each side say ByteDance retains possession of the recommender algorithm; US TikTok would license it. “License” can vary from “do no matter you need” to closely restricted. How open it’s will decide actual separation. You’ll additionally see the phrase “lease”; the label issues lower than the management phrases.
Oracle says it’s going to “retrain the algorithm from the bottom up.” What might that imply?
Fashions are solely pretty much as good as their coaching knowledge. TikTok’s was constructed over years on huge, blended corpora (together with scraped public net). Will ByteDance hand over these corpora? Do they nonetheless have them? If the brand new homeowners can’t replicate inputs, customers might discover “new TikTok” isn’t pretty much as good — which is a enterprise threat.
Will Oracle preserve American customers’ knowledge walled off from China?
Probably much like as we speak’s TikTok US Information Safety setup: new US consumer knowledge housed in Oracle-controlled TTP, [trusted technology partner] walled from ByteDance. The draft deal would formalize and proceed that.
What do the brand new US stakeholders get in addition to a shit ton of cash?
Cash is loads. However there’s additionally affect over speech guidelines: bullying/hate insurance policies, moderation posture, precedence alerts. Many on the left see this as handing an enormous speech platform to Trump allies. Savvy homeowners received’t overtly politicize quick — that’s dangerous enterprise (simply take a look at what occurred to Twitter/X). However possession in the end steers coverage.
Properly, it does seem like Trump handing it over to his highly effective political allies. Individuals like Larry Ellison of Oracle, Marc Andreessen, the Murdochs of Fox Information — they’re all concerned on this potential deal and it has a whiff of corruption. Am I lacking one thing right here?
I don’t suppose that’s flawed. If the Soros group wished in, or Warren Buffett, I’m under no circumstances positive Trump can be considering making that occur. You’re taking a look at a president who has concerned himself within the non-public sector, and in non-public offers, much more than any president in latest historical past.
He’s delivering an organ of speech to his allies — to individuals he believes will use it in methods he approves of. It’s a really bizarre deal. Once I take into consideration the legislation Congress handed, in a approach they had been making an attempt to curtail presidential authority, however the best way it was written nonetheless gave an immense quantity of energy to the president. And I feel a number of the individuals who handed it didn’t think about a president so prepared to interact in bare self-dealing.
If that they had, they could have written it in a different way. That’s simply true — I don’t suppose many would have finished it this manner in the event that they’d foreseen the second we’re in now.
How a lot better is that this association than Beijing controlling TikTok?
The e-book’s “authoritarian shakedown” concern was all the time the foil to a state that may’t try this. We’re now watching a US government try and form distribution and punish critics. We’re about to seek out out which is “higher,” however the CCP-like techniques are worrying.
