TikTok is not only probably the most downloaded app on the earth; it’s probably the most highly effective data 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 buyers. Now, with Donald Trump again in workplace, that battle has entered a brand new section that might reshape the social media panorama. Final week, Trump signed an executive order approving the creation of a brand new entity — TikTok US — that may enable the app to stay obtainable in America regardless of the “ban” that Congress passed 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 operating the brand new firm. China still has to approve the deal.
Emily Baker-White is a senior author at Forbes and the writer of Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over TikTok. Her reporting uncovered how ByteDance staff accessed American customers’ knowledge and the way TikTok’s inside programs gave the corporate monumental affect over what we see.
I invited Baker-White onto The Gray Area to speak about the latest news within the potential US-China TikTok deal, how Washington and Beijing are enjoying this sport, and why the app has turn out to be a cultural superpower. As at all times, there’s a lot extra within the full podcast, so pay attention and comply with The Gray Area 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 data may discover individuals higher than individuals may discover data. 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 when 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 can simply stand there and be an individual ready your flip. Now you’ll be able to’t simply, you realize, uncooked canine the checkout line. When did that turn out to be insupportable? When did we’ve got to be doing one thing in each tiny pause of day by 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 way 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’ll be able to 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 discuss moderation. We’ve mentioned the algorithm; what’s the human function at TikTok?
Immediately it’s just like different large UGC [user-generated content] platforms. Algorithms flag possible violations; massive groups of human moderators implement guidelines and tune these programs. Insurance policies within the US now look broadly like rivals’. Early on, it was totally different — extra “Chinese language” coverage defaults that have been later “Westernized.” One distinctive piece is the interior heating device.
“Keep in mind, you’re making fewer decisions about what to see. Meaning you’re ceding extra management over your data eating regimen to a faceless machine — and the individuals who construct and govern it.”
The heating button — what’s it?
It lets sure employees give a video a hard and fast variety of impressions — 5,000, 50,000, 5 million — overriding the recommender. That preliminary shove typically triggers additional natural progress. Early on, many individuals had entry. People used it to show the system what “good” regarded like when the algo was nonetheless tough. Advertising and marketing later used it to woo creators and companions. TikTok finally restricted entry and wrote stricter insurance policies, however misuse did occur — and with a device like that, some misuse possible persists.
Different platforms increase and demote content material too. What makes this totally different?
Everybody tunes distribution. What stood out right here was how specific, granular, and broadly obtainable the “large purple button” was — at the very least traditionally. (If of us at different platforms have related instruments, my Sign is open.)
How do you see TikTok’s cultural and political power in contrast with Fb and Twitter?
Fb and Instagram are extra comparable in measurement, and YouTube is big. However TikTok is basically, actually large — on the order of a 2019 or 2020 Fb, if not larger. And keep in mind, you’re making fewer decisions about what to see. Meaning you’re ceding extra management over your data eating regimen 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 staff — “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 may 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 employees 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 by way of TikTok. Years in the past, TikTok had restrictive insurance policies round China matters; these modified. There’s categorized materials — referenced obliquely in TikTok’s court docket filings — that US officers say includes 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 a whole bunch of inside instruments and knowledge pipes; closing each final pathway is Sisyphean. They bought far, however the “final mile” is difficult to ensure. The US finally doubted an answer, wanting full separation, can be foolproof.
What made that technical problem so daunting in follow?
If you happen to’ve ever labored inside a giant tech firm, you understand how many inside instruments there are and the way a lot they discuss to one another. TikTok is propped up by a whole bunch of them. The patron app you see sits on high of 500 inside apps. Reducing off knowledge flows throughout all of them was a maze-like, Sisyphean job. They closed most pathways, however the final mile was practically inconceivable.
Stroll me by way of the coverage saga.
Trump first tried to ban [TikTok], then to power a sale; he used the flawed authorized mechanism and misplaced in court docket. Biden’s crew negotiated Venture Texas for about 2 years, then pivoted to “promote or be banned,” pushing Congress to cross a regulation. ByteDance challenged; the case went to SCOTUS, which upheld the regulation. On the eve of [Trump’s second] inauguration, TikTok briefly “flickered” off; after taking workplace, Trump ordered DOJ to not implement the regulation. 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 are 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 client. That in all probability saved me from dependancy.
You finish the e-book noting Zhang Yiming is already shifting on to AGI (synthetic common 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, substitute 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 regulation. Reporting suggests he’ll signal an order declaring the deal meets final 12 months’s statute — he has huge latitude there. The potential US patrons/overseers embody Oracle (already TikTok’s cloud/TTP), Andreessen Horowitz, and probably 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’ll “retrain the algorithm from the bottom up.” What may that imply?
Fashions are solely nearly 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 nearly as good — which is a enterprise threat.
Will Oracle hold American customers’ knowledge walled off from China?
Seemingly just like right this moment’s TikTok US Knowledge 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 moreover a shit ton of cash?
Cash is lots. However there’s additionally affect over speech guidelines: bullying/hate insurance policies, moderation posture, precedence indicators. Many on the left see this as handing an enormous speech platform to Trump allies. Savvy homeowners gained’t overtly politicize quick — that’s dangerous enterprise (simply have a look at what occurred to Twitter/X). However possession in the end steers coverage.
Nicely, it does seem like Trump handing it over to his highly effective political allies. Folks 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 needed in, or Warren Buffett, I’m in no way positive Trump can be occupied with 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, far more than any president in current 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 regulation Congress handed, in a approach they have 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 believe numerous the individuals who handed it didn’t think about a president so prepared to have interaction in bare self-dealing.
If that they had, they may have written it in a different way. That’s simply true — I don’t suppose many would have accomplished 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 at all times the foil to a state that may’t try this. We’re now watching a US government try to form distribution and punish critics. We’re about to search out out which is “higher,” however the CCP-like techniques are worrying.
