Business
National Security · Issue No. 08
TikTok: The American Paradox
Competing interests, national security concerns and the limits of platform regulation in a connected world.
Special.Report Editors
June 2023
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
TikTok presents the United States with a genuinely novel regulatory challenge: a platform of extraordinary cultural reach owned by a Chinese parent company operating under a legal system that requires cooperation with state intelligence services. This report examines the national security arguments, the First Amendment constraints, the geopolitical context and the policy options available to Congress and the executive branch.
THE REPORT
With more than 150 million American users, TikTok has become one of the most consequential media platforms in the United States — and one of the most contested. The platform's ownership by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company subject to the PRC's National Intelligence Law, has made it the focal point of a debate about data security, content influence and the limits of platform regulation.
The national security concerns are real and documented. The potential for the Chinese government to access data on American users, or to influence the content Americans see, represents a category of risk that has no clear precedent in U.S. regulatory experience.
At the same time, any regulatory response must navigate serious First Amendment constraints, the practical difficulties of divestiture, and the geopolitical consequences of treating Chinese-owned platforms as categorically different from other foreign-owned media.
This report examines the competing interests at stake, the legal and policy tools available, and the broader implications of how the United States resolves the TikTok question for the future of platform governance and U.S.-China technology relations.
