Big policy changes rarely happen in presidential-election years. In fact, China’s social-media giant, TikTok, is counting on them not to happen.
The wildly popular platform narrowly escaped being banned by Congress in March 2023, when its CEO, Shou Chew, testified on Capitol Hill and proceeded to spend eye-popping lobbying fees to stave off further action. By all accounts, its success has been remarkable. Since Shou’s testimony, new information has emerged regarding the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. Studies have demonstrated TikTok’s willingness to censor anti-CCP content and boost messages aligned with Beijing’s foreign policy. It even appears that Shou lied during his congressional testimony, when he promised that U.S. user data is never stored in China.
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